Naruto: To Be Hokage
by N6548
Summary: Born in Konoha, "The Village Hidden in the Leaves", Naruto Uzumaki is host to the beast that once attacked his home. His goal? Easy; to be Hokage. This is the story of Naruto and his friends, as they all fight and grow to achieve their dreams... or die knowing they gave it their best. T for Language and Violence. May change in later chapters, if it does, I'll update.
1. Prologue: Pleased to Meet You

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto does, at least until I manage to steal the copyright papers. (I know that's sadly not how copyright works)

Warning: Spoilers from the anime and manga ahead, read at your own discretion.

Prologue: Pleased to Meet You

Naruto had a huge grin on his face as he admired his latest masterpiece, he had really outdone himself this time, it was probably the biggest and flashiest prank he had ever pulled, which definitely made him feel quite proud of himself. As he took in his work of art he noticed his companion was nowhere to be found. 'Coward', thought Naruto with a grin, the bastard had probably ditched him, again.

*Linebreak*

It had been 6 years since Hiruzen had taken back the mantle of Hokage after Jiraiya refused to become the Fifth Hokage. Why his student was so against it, the Third would never know. And although he liked the job, more than once he wished that his student hadn't been so stubborn. After all, it was every Kage's duty to lead and protect their village, to ensure the next generation grew happy and strong, and in a healthy environment, to make sure the law was just, and fairly upheld, to manage relations with other villages and nations, to make sure the clans within the village didn't tear each other apart, to decide which shinobi were ready to be made jonin, to oversee the chunin nominations and exams, and to be an example for all living in the village. And yet these responsibilities were not what kept them up at unholy hours, why most had wanted to quit more than once, nor why they all found every chance they could to relax, they all had one enemy in common, one which made their very existence dreadful; paperwork. It was ridiculous how many papers, documents, requests, reports, letters, complaints, and whatnot he had to read, revise, approve, sign, stamp, reject, read again. Suffice it to say, the pile of papers in front of him weighed more than what the average chunin could lift. But he had to do it, it was, in the end, his job. But when Kakashi suddenly appeared in his office, giving him an eye-smile (Hiruzen always found it baffling how many emotions the masked jonin could convey with just one eye), he knew that he was going to have to put it off… again.

"So, Kakashi", he started. "What did he do this time?"

"He… well", chuckled the cyclops. "He decided the Hokage Monument was in need of a makeover"

Hiruzen sighed, he loved the child to death, but he was sure that he went out of his way to make his job harder than it already was. "I'll go take a look then", he said before vanishing, leaving only leaves where he stood a second before.

After the Third had left Kakashi's smile grew a bit while he thought; 'Well, sensei does look better than expected with a mustache.' And with that, he too vanished, only his destination was different, as he wanted to continue reading his book in peace.

*Linebreak*

Naruto took a moment to admire his masterpiece. He wasn't one to brag, but damn, he had really outdone himself this time. He had covered the First Hokage's face in spirals and drawn angry eyebrows on him, the Second had gotten away with the least damage, having only gotten various words tattooed onto his face, the most prominent one being on his forehead, which read; "Got you!", the current Hokage's face had been altered to look like that of a devil, complete with forehead horns and a goatee, Naruto thinking back to all the cruel study sessions "The Professor" had put him through, finally, he had given the Fourth Hokage a mustache and glasses, and even whiskers like his own. Yup, he was proud of himself.

His appreciation for his work was cut short when he heard a voice; "You brat! Come here!"

'Oh well', he thought, "Time to run". And that he did, trying to hide from the various chunin pursuing him while wondering where his companion had gone, it wasn't like anyone ever caught him, only the old man and said companion seemed to be able to track him down. Not that it mattered right now, he had to focus on getting away, he was in no mood for a sermon from the Hokage. And for a moment, it seemed like he really was getting away, until he ran face-first into something that is.

Realizing said something had been a someone, Naruto immediately began apologizing, hoping whoever it had been wasn't going to yell at him. That was until he took in the appearance of the one he bumped into and mentally face-palmed. Only he would somehow manage to crash into the one man he had wanted to avoid.

"H-Hi, old man", he said quickly, looking at the Third Hokage with big, puppy eyes, trying to look as innocent as possible, while trying to think of a plan to get away, "Are you taking a walk?"

"You could say that", replied Hiruzen, looking at the small boy with a small smile, "Care to join me?", the question was asked in a tone that let Naruto know he had no choice in the matter.

"S-Sure!", he agreed, trying to seem excited. "Where are we going?"

"Oh, I thought we could visit the Hokage Monument", he said, still smiling while looking in the direction of said monument. "I know you're quite fond of the place"

'Well crap… I'm dead', realised Naruto.

*Linebreak*

"Now please, try not to make my job harder than it needs to be, I'm too old for this", was the last thing Naruto heard before he left the Hokage's office.

'The old man is crazy', he thought, as he went down the stairs and left the Hokage building. 'Can't believe he made me clean all the stone faces, and still scold me afterwards'.

'Man, all that cleaning really got me hungry, better go to Ichiraku', he decided, drooling at the prospect of ramen.

He walked through the village on auto-pilot, knowing the way to his favourite restaurant as well as he knew the path from his bedroom door to his bed. A thousand thoughts went through his head while walking, most about ramen, distracting him from the road and everyone on it, but this was on purpose, one could say even a reflex he had developed over the years, as he hated the glares that most villagers gave him, he just ignored them by thinking of whatever came to mind. This would, however, backfire sometimes, as he was reminded when he crashed into a boy he hadn't noticed.

He nursed his butt and stood up, turning his attention towards the other boy, "Sorry", he said, offering his hand to the kid.

"No, don't worry about it, it's really my fault, I should pay more attention when I walk", replied the boy, looking apologetic and taking Naruto's hand to stand up. "My name is Sasuke by the way, what's yours?"

"I'm Naruto", answered Naruto. "Pleased to meet you", he added with a huge grin, letting go of Sasuke's hand. "Were you going somewhere Sasuke?"

"I just finished training with my brother, so I was looking for something to eat."

"Great!", exclaimed an excited Naruto. "I'm going for some ramen, wanna join me?"

Sasuke seemed to consider the offer, Itachi was always telling him to make friends, so he might as well try to. "Sure, let's go", said Sasuke with a small smile.

And like that, they set off towards Ichiraku.

Kakashi, who had been watching from the shadows was now evidently happy, 'So, Naruto finally made a friend, and an Uchiha no less. They should make for an interesting pair', he thought, before deciding to report this to the Hokage.

*Linebreak*

Teuchi was having a rather slow day, as was his daughter, not many customers had stopped by today, so they were both joking around. They were used to such days, every business owner is. The problem was that they had also gotten used to a certain daily customer, one who not only consumed enough ramen to keep the place running on his own, if they were to charge him for everything that is, but also improved both their moods whenever he came by. He had not stopped by today. That train of thought was quickly corrected when Naruto walked in no more than five seconds later, and with a friend no less!

"Hello Naru-chan!" greeted Teuchi's daughter, Ayame. "Who's your friend?"

"Ayame nee-san! This is Sasuke, he's my friend", declared a clearly excited Naruto, this being his first time actually introducing someone. "Sasuke, these are Ayame and old man Teuchi, they make the best ramen in the world!"

"My name is Sasuke, pleased to meet you", said Sasuke while bowing his head lightly. Secretly wondering if his new friend's claims were true.

"You should learn some manners from your friend Naruto", teased Teuchi before turning towards Sasuke with a smile, "Pleased to meet you Sasuke, I'm Teuchi and this is my daughter Ayame."

"What will you be having today boys?", asked Ayame with a laugh. Already watching Naruto drool over the counter.

"I want two miso, and three pork ramen bowls", said Naruto.

"I'll just have one bowl of miso ramen thank you", decided Sasuke, a bit surprised at the amount of food the blond had ordered.

"Six bowls, coming right up!", she said, as she almost immediately placing each boy's order in front of them. They always had some bowls ready for Naruto's appetite.

Sasuke blew into his before taking his chopsticks and trying the stand's ramen for the first time. He had to admit, he never thought ramen could actually taste great, having only eaten it out of a cup once or twice. For his part Naruto didn't miss a beat, as he was already downing his third bowl, before abruptly stopping, thinking back to when he met the boy sitting next to him, "Wait, Sasuke, you said you were training with your brother, are you a shinobi?", he asked, his mouth still full.

"No", replied Sasuke, chuckling when he noticed Teuchi and Ayame laughing at Naruto, he probably always spoke before finishing his food. "Not yet, but I'll enter the Academy when I'm eight to be as cool as my brother."

"So your brother is a shinobi?", questioned Naruto.

"He is, and he is the coolest one ever, but someday I'll be as cool as him", he answered, pride and admiration evident in his eyes.

"Awesome! I also want to be a shinobi, and one day I'll be Hokage!", declared Naruto with an air of finality.

"You can't be Hokage Naruto", concluded Sasuke as if it were obvious, "The Hokage is the strongest shinobi in the village, and you'll never be stronger than nii-san"

This pissed Naruto off. "Of course I can! I'll be stronger than any of the Hokage that came before me, just you watch!", exclaimed a determined Naruto.

Teuchi just laughed as both boys continued talking, he didn't say it, but he was glad Naruto had made a friend, with the way most villagers treated him, Naruto could really use one.

After they had finished eating, Teuchi told them that their meal was on the house, and with that, they both left thanking the shop owner.

As they walked Naruto turned to Sasuke, "Hey, are you training tomorrow?"

"No, my brother has squad training with his captain, so I'm probably going to stay home. Why?"

"Well, I'm not doing anything tomorrow either. So I was wondering if you'd like to go to the park?"

"Sure", answered Sasuke, "Let's meet there in the morning."

"Great!" See you tomorrow then!", yelled Naruto while waving his friend goodbye.

Sasuke just nodded and waved as well before heading home himself.

By the time Naruto got home it was already dark, so he headed straight to his bed, changed into his pajamas and went to sleep, as he could hardly wait for the next day. His smile never left his face, even in his deep slumber, he was overjoyed to have finally made a friend.

*Linebreak*

Naruto woke up early the next day, took a shower, boiled some water for his daily breakfast ramen, and got dressed. Wearing a simple orange shirt, blue shorts and brown sandals, he went to the park.

By the time he got there Sasuke was already waiting for him, so he ran towards his friend while waving his hand like a madman. "Hey Sasuke!"

"Hi Naruto", greeted Sasuke while getting up to join his blond friend.

They talked for a while, but that quickly devolved into an all-out game of 'ninja tag' as the called it, which was essentially regular tag, all while trying to act as ninja-like as they could, which Sasuke managed quite a bit better than Naruto, having at least had some training from his brother, while Naruto's 'training' so far had consisted of pulling pranks and the old man's occasional lesson, but those were rarely practical. They played for about two hours, before they were both exhausted. Sasuke had to admit, he was impressed by Naruto's stamina, he was keeping up with him, and probably feeling less tired than he did, even though he knew for a fact that he had trained much more than the blond. Whichever the case, they were both tired, so Sasuke suggested they stop and eat some lunch, of which his mom had packed enough for both, ecstatic that her son had made a friend. Naruto would never argue with food, so he quickly agreed, and both boys sat down.

Sasuke passed a lunch box to Naruto, along with a tea-filled canteen, and took one of each himself, as both began eating.

"Hey Naruto, didn't you bring any lunch yourself?", asked Sasuke, finding it weird that his friend had brought nothing with him.

"Well, I didn't really feel like cooking anything, I'm not really that good at it, and in order to bring ramen I would need to have some way of boiling water, which I don't, so I just decided I would eat when I got back home."

"Do you always cook your own food?"

"Mostly I just go to Ichiraku, or buy cup ramen, but yeah."

"Are your parents always busy or something?", asked the Uchiha, very curious as to what his friend's parents did.

Naruto's eyes gained a sad look to them as he answered, "Well, it's more like… Well, I don't actually have parents."

Sasuke immediately regretted his question, "I'm sorry, I didn't know", he said, clearly blaming himself for bringing up the topic.

Shaking his head a bit, Naruto turned to Sasuke, "No, no, it's fine. I never actually met them, they died on the day I was born. I don't really know much about them", he said, before his eyes turned from sad to proud, "All I know is that they were both amazing."

Sasuke simply nodded, not wanting to ruin his friend's change of mood.

"By the way, didn't you say that your brother is a shinobi?"

Now that was something Sasuke would gladly talk about, "Yeah, he is, the coolest one ever, even cooler than the Hokage."

"Really? Awesome! Does he know a lot of jutsu and stuff?"

"Yeah, he is even part of some sort of secret squad called the Anbu or something."

"Cool!", was all Naruto said, his eyes taking on the shape of stars.

After they were finished eating, Naruto helped Sasuke put the containers his mom had packed for them back into his backpack, when he noticed two other boys who were sitting not very far from them. One of them wore a green shirt and brown pants with sandals, he was quite slim, and wore his hair in a very small pineapple-like ponytail. The other one was wearing a light yellow shirt with cream-coluored pants and sandals, he was larger than his friend, had light brown hair, and had a spiral pattern on his cheeks.

His confidence soaring from having made a friend Naruto thought of an idea, "Come on Sasuke! Let's go talk to them."

"Sure, let's go", agreed Sasuke, deciding that he might like the other kids.

The two then approached the other pair. "Hey!", greeted naruto while waving his hand. "I'm Naruto, and this is Sasuke", he said while signaling towards his friend with a huge grin on his face.

"Pleased to meet you", added Sasuke with a small smile.

Knowing that his friend would find the idea of more kids 'troublesome', the light-haired boy was quick to answer. "I'm Choji, this is Shikamaru", announced Choji while pointing at Shikamaru.

"'Yo", greeted Shikamaru.

"Would you like to play with us?", asked a very excited Naruto.

"Sure. What about you Shikamaru?"

"We just played a little while ago, it's too troublesome", was the Nara's answer, even as he stood up and readied himself… which he was about to find out, was a very good idea.

Shikamaru couldn't believe how loud and energetic the blond was, he didn't ever seem to get tired. After they had played around for two or three hours, Shikamaru was ready to head home and take a nap, the two kids he had met today were insane. Even though he appreciated Sasuke's calm and polite demeanor, the boy never stopped, he and Naruto seemed to be able to go on forever. And he did like Naruto, he was optimistic enough for all four of them, and seemed to genuinely enjoy every minute they all spent together, but apparently, having him around was enough to get Choji to get fired up as well.

After they finally stopped playing, as they were laying down on the grass, he turned towards Naruto. "Hey, are you entering the Academy? I mean, I know Sasuke is going to, so I assume you are too."

"Yeah, I am! It will be the first step in my path to becoming Hokage!", answered Naruto, his eyes steeled with determination. "Wait, how did you know Sasuke and me are entering the Academy?"

"And I", corrected Sasuke.

"Huh?", deadpanned a confused Naruto.

"Sasuke and I. Nii-san says it's important to speak correctly", clarified the Uchiha.

With a tick over his left eye, the blond retaliated, "I speak correctly!"

Shikamaru decided to intervene and answer before things got out of hand, not having the energy nor the desire to spectate an argument. "Sasuke is an Uchiha", he began, "So it's obvious he would be entering the Academy, and before you ask, I knew he was an Uchiha from looking at his shirt, and noticing his mannerisms. As for you, well, for one, you are able to keep up with us three, and we are all entering the Academy, so I guessed you must also be training the same way we are."

Naruto looked at him baffled, genuinely impressed with the boy.

Choji couldn't help but laugh when he saw Naruto's face, he wasn't the first to react that way to Shikamaru, even Sasuke seemed impressed. "Yeah, Shikamaru is really smart. I had no idea that either of you were also entering the Academy. But that's great, that means we will all be in the same class."

They all smiled when Choji pointed that out, all of them happy to have people they got along with in their class. Though Shikamaru was a bit worried about Naruto, he was sure the blond would make their Academy years much more annoying, but even then, he was glad to have them in his class.

And so they all eventually parted ways, each heading home for the night, all of them deciding to meet up again the next day.

As days went by, Naruto and Sasuke hung out, sometimes Choji and Shikamaru joined in, to talk, play, and even 'train' sometimes. Their training wasn't much, it mostly involved much running and grappling, but it meant a lot to all of them, especially Naruto.

*Linebreak*

One such morning, as they sat on the swings at the park, Sasuke turned to Naruto, "Hey, Naruto, let's go meet nii-san."

"Your brother?", asked Naruto.

"Yeah, he is super cool, and I think you'll like him."

Not really having to think about it, Naruto answered with a smile, "Sure, let's go."

So they found themselves walking to where Sasuke and Itachi normally trained.

When they arrived Naruto could see a tall guy, wearing a black short-sleeved shirt, black pants with a kunai holster on his left leg and a shuriken pouch on his right, standard shinobi shoes. He wore his hair in a ponytail which fell a little past his shoulders. Said teen was sitting down, drinking water and wiping off some sweat with a towel. It was evident that he had just finished training. Seeing his brother Sasuke immediately ran to him; "Nii-san!"

"Hey there Sasuke", greeted Itachi with a smile. "Who's that with you?"

"This is Naruto, he's my friend", replied Sasuke.

"Your friend huh? Well, it's very nice to meet you Naruto-kun.", said Itachi with a soft voice. "Has my little brother given you much trouble?", he added while flicking Sasuke's forehead.

"Nii-san!", complained Sasuke, rubbing his forehead.

Naruto chuckled at this and answered; "Nice to meet you Itachi-san. Don't worry, he hasn't, we've been having lots of fun together!"

"You have? That is great to hear", said Itachi, clearly glad. "I have been telling Sasuke to make friends forever, good to see he finally listened to me."

"Yeah, the old man is always telling me the same thing", said Naruto. "He is very annoying."

Itachi laughed at Naruto's comment before asking; "And who is the old man?"

"Oh, he's the Hokage, well… not for long anyway", answered Naruto.

"Oh, and what do you mean by that?", questioned an intrigued Itachi.

"Well, I'll be Hokage someday, so he's not going to be Hokage forever", said Naruto as if it was obvious.

Itachi just laughed at this, not even bothering to respond. "So, how did you two meet?"

"Well", said Sasuke while rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "We sort of crashed into each other and he invited me to join him for some ramen, so we ate together, and talked a lot."

Itachi sweat-dropped at the way his brother made his first friend, but he was glad nonetheless. They spent the rest of the day running around and asking Itachi question after question, about how it is to be a shinobi, what kind of training he did, how strong he was, and whatnot.

After running around all day, they finally sat down, exhausted.

"Hey Itachi-san, aren't you tired?", asked Naruto, his weariness evident on his face.

"Not really Naruto-kun. The training drills my captain puts us through are much worse than playing around with you kids", answered Itachi truthfully. "But I did have a lot of fun today, so thank you boys."

Sasuke simply smiled wider than most would think possible while Naruto laughed while lying on the ground.

"Say Naruto-kun, it's getting pretty late, want us to walk you home?", offered Itachi.

"No, thank you, Itachi-san, I can go home by myself", declined Naruto, but Itachi swore he saw a hint of sadness in Naruto's eyes.

"Come on, what kind of adult would I be if I let you go home by yourself?" argued Itachi, " Am I right Sasuke?"

Sasuke hummed in agreement while nodding his head.

So Itachi stood up, lifted Sasuke onto his shoulders, and offered his hand to Naruto for him to stand up, leaving no room for argument.

While walking to Naruto's house they passed by Ichiraku Ramen and Itachi chuckled lightly when he noticed Naruto drooling while staring at the restaurant.

As they got closer to Naruto's house, Itachi felt something grip his hand and looked down to find Naruto holding it.

'He probably hasn't even noticed that he's holding my hand', noticed Itachi, he could see it by the way Naruto was acting. 'But why would he hold my hand so tightly, what's going on?'

It wasn't long before he got his answer, Itachi started noticing that the people passing by were giving Naruto hateful glares, glares which conveyed feelings of which no child should be on the receiving end. As these people passed by, Itachi made sure to give them glares of his own to make sure they understood that if they tried anything, he would protect the boy. And thanks to this, the people just looked away and continued walking, if only slightly faster, some sweating a bit.

Itachi knew of Naruto's circumstances, his father had told him, and most people in his clan probably felt the same way as the civilians they had just passed, but this was too much, the kid was kind, gentle, funny, people shouldn't be treating him like this. He was especially disappointed in the many shinobi he saw glaring at the child, 'A shinobi's duty is to protect the villagers', he reasoned in his head. Instead, they had chosen to forfeit said duty.

He was cut out of his thoughts when he noticed movement behind him, he turned his head towards the source of said movement quickly but discretely, at first he saw nothing, but he eventually noticed a grey flak jacket and an Anbu mask that resembled a dog, but as soon as he saw it, he lost it.

'Captain? What are you doing here?', he thought. He then realised he was probably keeping an eye on Naruto.

This realization calmed him down, if only a little.

When they finally got to Naruto's house, said boy went to open the door while saying; "Want to come in?"

"We'd love to" accepted Itachi, if only to ensure Naruto would be safe, while Sasuke just nodded from atop his shoulders.

When they went in Itachi immediately noticed that Naruto wasn't a very ordered person, he could see every single door in the apartment was wide open, his bedroom door, the closet doors, the bathroom door, and from the bedroom's open door he could see bunch of clothes on the floor and the bedsheets barely even on the bed. What did surprise him was how clean the place was, there were no dirty dishes nor trash on the floor.

"Hey Naruto, wasn't there another chair?", asked Sasuke when he realized there were only three chairs instead of four.

"Hehehe, funny story that one", began Naruto while rubbing the back of his head. "You see, I was kind of leaning on it yesterday, and I kind of fell, and so it kind of broke."

Both Sasuke and Itachi sweat-dropped at this.

"You've been here before Sasuke?", asked the older Uchiha, taking note of his little brother's question.

"Yeah, Naruto and I sometimes come here after training", answered his little brother.

Itachi couldn't help but smile, he was glad these two were close, they both needed it.

"Say Naruto-kun, seeing as you've brought Sasuke home many times, why don't I buy you two dinner tomorrow?", offered Itachi, both in gratitude for the friendship the blond had extended to his little brother and because he didn't like the idea of Naruto being alone here at night, but realising that taking him to the Uchiha compound wouldn't be a very good idea.

Naruto and Sasuke smiled widely at this, both quickly nodding in agreement.

Putting Sasuke down Itachi said; "Hey Sasuke, mind waiting here for me for five minutes? I saw something I want to check out."

"Of course", said Sasuke, him and Naruto already sitting down and chatting away.

Itachi took this opportunity and shunshined to the roof of Naruto's house.

When he arrived there he found exactly what, or rather who, he wanted to find. There on the roof, in a squatting position, was his Anbu captain Kakashi, wearing the standard Anbu uniform with his face uncovered, his mask resting on the side of his face, his famous orange book in hand.

"Yo Itachi", greeted Kakashi while raising his hand.

"Hello Kakashi", replied Itachi while walking towards him. "What are you doing here? Keeping an eye on Naruto?"

"Yeah, he always has a squad of Anbu following him around, but when it's my shift I prefer to do it alone, it gives me time to hang out with him", explained Kakashi. "Though I suspect if I were to try to talk to him right now he would kick my ass", added the captain with obvious satisfaction.

"Oh, and why is that?", asked an amused Itachi.

"I sort of ratted him out to the Hokage", answered Kakashi while shrugging.

"That makes sense", said Itachi, understanding.

They sat in silence for a minute or two until Kakashi broke it. "I really appreciate it."

"Huh?", asked a confused Itachi.

"You being so nice to Naruto, your brother and him being friends, all of it. He needs it, so thanks", finished Kakashi while smiling.

"It's my pleasure. It's not like I do it out of pity. I actually like the kid", responded Itachi, his mind thinking back to the day he had just spent with the kid. "He's really something isn't he?", added Itachi, turning his gaze to the sky. "He seems to lighten the mood wherever he goes."

"You can say that again", agreed Kakashi, before he returned his gaze to his book. "You know who he is, don't you?"

"Naturally, my father told me", explained the Uchiha. "But even if he hadn't I would have eventually put two and two together", after all, he wasn't called a genius for nothing. "He's got quite a legacy to live up to, hasn't he?"

"That he does. I've told him some things about his parents, he doesn't know who they are yet, but he knows that they were very strong and kind people, or, 'incredibly cool', as he puts it", explained Kakashi with a smile.

"He's gonna freak out when he finds out."

"Yeah, he will. That's what makes it fun", replied Kakashi.

"It's getting pretty late, gotta go get my little brother now", said Itachi while standing up.

"Yeah, go do that", agreed Kakashi. "And Itachi… thanks again."

"No problem captain", Itachi assured him before shunshining once again.

What he saw when he got there made him smile, both boys were now asleep on the floor, probably more tired than they had realized from running around all day. As he didn't want to wake either of them up, he decided to send a crow to his father explaining that they wouldn't be sleeping at home, but assuring him that he was with Sasuke. And with that he carried both boys into Naruto's bed, covering them with the blankets, patted Naruto's head, and kissed Sasuke's forehead. He then closed the windows, and let himself fall on Naruto's couch where he lay for a while thinking about all that had happened throughout the day before realizing something, Shisui would be returning tomorrow.

*Linebreak*

Naruto and Sasuke were 'training' together on the training ground that Sasuke and Itachi used, they had been at it for about half an hour and they were beginning to get tired, but just as Sasuke was about to suggest they do something else, they both saw a burst of smoke in front of them, out of which emerged Kakashi.

"Yo", he greeted smiling with his one eye, and his hand raised.

A second passed in silence, then two, three, four, fi-

"You bastard!", yelled Naruto as he jumped on him, "You abandoned me and then ratted me out!", he began punching the jonin, with no intention of stopping.

After Kakashi managed to subdue Naruto, there was a very visible bump forming on the jonin's head.

Holding Naruto down, who was still screaming and kicking at him he turned towards the other boy, "Hello there Sasuke-kun."

"Hello Kakashi-san, good to see you", Sasuke greeted while chuckling.

"Wait", Naruto stopped yelling and flailing. "You know Kakashi, Sasuke?"

Sasuke sweat-dropped a bit at the question. "Yeah, I told you when you first mentioned him, he is nii-san's captain and has come over for lunch once or twice."

"Itachi-san's… captain?", asked a curious Naruto.

"Yeah, Itachi is part of my squad Naruto, you already know Tenzo and Yugao, they are all members of the squad I lead."

"Awesome", said Naruto more to himself than anyone else before realizing something. "Wait… don't change the topic you one-eyed bastard! Why did you abandon me?!"

"Now, now, I never abandoned you, I simply lost track of you when you ran off towards the Hokage Monument, and so decided to go read my book. Can you forgive me Naruto?", asked the cyclops while smiling.

Naruto immediately thought of a plan. "Hmm, I might consider it… if you help me and Sasuke train", he said with a large grin.

After considering the request for a moment Kakashi decided it wouldn't hurt them to learn a little, they only had two years left before entering the Academy after all.

"Ok, I'll do it", announced Kakashi.

Even Sasuke couldn't help the smile that took over his face as he asked; "What are you teaching us Kakashi-san?"

"Have you two boys ever thrown shuriken or kunai?"

They both nodded yes, Sasuke had trained a bit with Itachi, and Naruto and Sasuke had played around with some that Itachi had lent them the day before, so they both had, even if Sasuke was a bit more experienced in it.

"Good, then I'll just go over the basics quickly", began the jonin. "Shuriken are four-pronged throwing stars with a circle in the middle, they are meant for throwing and when used effectively they can disable or kill an opponent. Kunai on the other hand, are small daggers, regularly made out of black metal, although they are normally meant for melee combat, many shinobi have found them to be very useful when thrown, so they have a variety of uses."

After this brief explanation, he gave each of the boys ten shuriken and ten kunai for practice on clones he provided. By the end of the day both boys were exhausted, they had some cuts on their hands and a few on their arms, but were both quite happy.

Sasuke had found training with someone other than his brother or Naruto to be tough but enriching. He had no real problem throwing either tool, though he much preferred shuriken over kunai. Naruto on the other hand, had found it much harder to handle the shuriken than the kunai, which he actually seemed to pick up quite easily, he still wasn't quite as good as Sasuke at either, but his progress with the kunai was impressive.

"Say Sasuke", began Kakashi. "I noticed you have a very good aim, not only for throwing but in general, do you do any training of the sort with Itachi?"

"Well, nii-san taught me how to use a bow, and I get to it use a lot because he often takes me hunting with him", explained Sasuke.

"Well that makes sense", said Kakashi before turning to Naruto. "And you surprised me quite a bit Naruto, you got the hang of the kunai very quickly." 'You remind me of your father', he added in his head.

"Yeah, I actually quite liked them, not the shuriken though, those things are weird", said Naruto.

Kakashi simply chuckled at this.

It was at this moment that both boys realized that they had to meet with Itachi for dinner very soon.

"Hey Kakashi, we're having dinner with Sasuke's brother in a bit…", began Naruto.

"Would you like to come with us?", finished Sasuke.

Kakashi eye-smiled; "Sure, I'll join you."

And like that, the four of them were sitting on a small table at the Yakiniku Q, a popular barbecue place. After ordering five orders of salted beef tongue Itachi turned to the kids who he noticed were quite dirty, also taking notice of the cuts in their hands. "I take it you had a lot of fun today."

Both boys grinned while Kakashi answered; "Yeah, they're very energetic, sorry if they're a bit cut up."

"Don't worry about it, they'll have to get used to it anyway", assured Itachi, laughing and smiling.

And so the night went on, they ate, they talked, they joked, and at around eleven o'clock, they each went their own ways, Itachi took Sasuke back to the compound and Kakashi took Naruto home.

"Well, see you tomorrow Naruto", said Kakashi while waving, right before closing the door, jumping to the roof to wait there for a while in order to make sure nothing happened.

*Linebreak*

"Nii-san, Izumi-san!", greeted a very excited Sasuke. His clothes were dirty, his light blue shirt a bit torn, his white short now brown and he wasn't even wearing sandals anymore. He was smiling widely nonetheless.

"Hello there Sasuke-kun, who's your friend?", asked Izumi with a smile while ruffling Sasuke's hair.

"This is Naruto", explained Sasuke while pointing at Naruto. "Naruto, this is Izumi-san, she's nii-san's girlfriend!"

At this Izumi blushed madly and waved her hands in front of her face while denying what Sasuke had just said. Itachi also blushed a little, albeit a much, much smaller blush than his female companion's. After she finally calmed down Izumi turned to Naruto, still blushing. "Well hello Naruto-kun, pleased to meet you. I'm Izumi Uchiha, Itachi's friend."

"Pleased to meet you Izumi-san", said Naruto while looking at the older girl, she looked about Itachi's age, she wore a sleeveless light purple dress that reached just below her knees with a tall round neck which reached all the way to her chin, she, like Sasuke, wasn't wearing sandals. She had long brown hair which reached all the way to her lower back, and dark brown eyes.

"So, you boys certainly look like you had fun today", said Itachi with a smile.

"You bet we did!", said a very excited Naruto. "We watched a spar between Tenzo and Yugao, it was awesome, Tenzo did some signs and wood sprouted from the ground", at this part Naruto threw his arms into the air as if to simulate the rapidly growing trees.

"But Yugao jumped really high and pulled out her katana and sliced the blocks of wood", while saying this Naruto moved his hand as if he was cutting something. And he continued like this, telling them every detail about the battle he and Sasuke had seen.

"And after that, the three of them bought us lunch, we went to Amaguriama and ate lots of dango", said Sasuke, continuing from where his friend had left off.

"Wait, three of them?", asked Izumi.

"Oh yeah, Kakashi was also there, though he said he didn't want to spar, so we couldn't see him fight", explained Naruto, looking a bit disappointed at that last part.

"Izumi and I were about to head to the park", said Itachi, not wanting to be out-brothered by his pervert of a captain, "How about you two join us? It should be fun"

Naruto and Sasuke agreed immediately, and Izumi couldn't help but like the idea, both boys were super adorable after all. And so they set off towards the park.

As soon as they got there Izumi and Itachi sat down, while Sasuke and Naruto ran off, eager to play 'ninja tag', and soon disappeared from the sight of both teenagers.

Some time later, Naruto had been running away from Sasuke for long enough that he began losing track of time, their games of ninja tag always got intense, and this one was no exception. As he began sneaking around, trying to hide behind some trees and bushes, he heard someone crying. As it sounded like a kid his age, he decided to check it out, and after traversing a lot of bushes he found a small clearing where he saw a small, very pretty girl; her long, pink hair reaching a little below her shoulders, she wore a peach-coloured sundress and blue sandals, and was sitting on the grass, crying. In front of her stood another girl, this one seemed a bit taller, she had short blond hair and clear, blue eyes; she wore a pale-orange blouse and thistle-coloured skirt with no sandals.

Deducing that the blonde had probably been the one to make the other girl cry, he stood in front of the pink-haired girl and glared at the former, ignoring the look of regret in the blonde's eyes. "Hey, what the hell?! Why did you make her cry?"

Said look of regret was quickly replaced by one of ire, "Why would you assume I wanted to make her cry you jerk?!", she said, stomping towards Naruto with fierce determination.

Naruto gulped, he had screwed up, but he stood his ground.

Choji arrived just in time to see Ino about to probably kick Naruto's ass, Shikamaru right behind him. "Hey Ino, there's no need to be so mad at Naruto, he was just concerned for that girl."

Naruto nodded quickly, agreeing with Choji wholeheartedly.

"Still, the jerk had the gall to assume that I made Sakura cry on purpose", argued a still angry Ino with a tick on her forehead.

It was at this moment that Sasuke arrived, looking for Naruto. As he watched the exchange between the two blonds he understood what had happened, or at least some of it, and approached the still sobbing girl, to whom he held out his hand. "Forgive my friend, he's a bit rash, but he really just wants to help", he began with a kind smile, "More importantly, are you ok?"

Sakura just stared at the recent arrival with a light blush on her cheeks. As she began to calm down and her sobbing ceased, she reached out and took his hand, using it to stand up, "Y-yeah, I'm fine. Thank you."

"No problem", he assured.

They were broken out of their conversation as they heard a strong strike, and turned to the side to see a bump forming on Naruto's head, Ino standing over him with a frown.

"I'm sorry", apologized Naruto in slight fear of receiving another punch, to everyone's surprise, he sounded quite polite as he apologised.

"Damn right you are!", agreed Ino.

"Troublesome blonds", was all Shikamaru said as he watched the exchange. "Ino, meet Naruto, the guy you just punched", he began, his frustration evident, "And Sasuke, the one you haven't even noticed. Naruto, Sasuke, meet Ino, the very angry girl."

That last comment made Ino even angrier, but he pushed it aside, for now, just now remembering her female friend. "I'm so sorry Sakura, I didn't mean to make you cry, I guess I pushed it too far, but I thought we were just kidding around", she said, obviously regretting whatever she had said.

"It's fine Ino", she accepted the apology while still sniffing a bit, "It's just that I am very sensitive about it."

"In that case, I promise I will never mention it again", assured the blonde.

"Thanks", responded Sakura, she really appreciated it.

Remembering the introductions Shikamaru had made, she quickly turned to see the new kids, "My name is Ino, and this here is Sakura."

"Pleased to meet you", added the latter, blushing a bit when she looked at Sasuke, something that did not go unnoticed by her friend.

"I'm Sasuke, and this is Naruto", said the Uchiha while smiling, putting a hand on the blond's shoulder.

"Are they your friends Shikamaru?", asked a curious Ino.

"Well, yeah. Choji and I met them a couple of weeks ago."

"So you know them too Choji?", she continued.

"Yeah, all four of us are friends", explained the Akimichi.

Deciding that playing for a while would improve Sakura's mood, Ino turned to Naruto, as he seemed to be the most enthusiastic of the group. "Wanna play together?"

Naruto immediately perked up, "Hell yeah! We can play tag or hide and seek. What do you guys think?", he questioned with a huge grin.

"I'm in", said Choji, he always enjoyed playing with Naruto and Sasuke.

"Sure, sounds fun", agreed Sasuke.

Understanding the blonde's intentions Shikamaru just shrugged, "Why not?"

They all played for a few hours, which really seemed to cheer Sakura up, as she was instantly laughing and running around with everyone else. They got to know each other quite well in that time. They all learned that they were all planning to enter the Academy as soon as they were eight years old, they learned which families they were from, talked about their hobbies, and joked around until it was finally time to part ways, each of them heading home, Naruto and Sasuke returning to Itachi and Izumi, but just as before, all six of them agreed to meet up again.

After returning to where Izumi and Itachi were, the four of them spent the rest of the day together, Sasuke and Naruto told them all about their new friends, while the other two told them a bit about theirs. And so, without any of them realizing it, the day flew by, and they were all soon headed back home, Itachi again insisting on walking Naruto home, though he seemed to be less reluctant this time.

After spending so much time with him, Izumi found that she quite liked Naruto, he was cheerful and full of energy, a good change from the people of her clan, they were all so stuck up. Add to that her affection for Sasuke, who was always so polite and cheery. She couldn't help but think that the two boys were the cutest thing ever. Hanging out with Sasuke and Naruto really brought her spirits up, not to mention Itachi, she loved having him around, some of her friends, like Hana and Anko teased her about him, but she couldn't help it, he was different; kind, humble, strong. So maybe she liked him, so what? It's not like they could confirm it anyway.

*Linebreak*

Shikamaru didn't like exerting himself, his idea of hanging out with friends involved lying on the grass and gazing at clouds, maybe even taking a nap, so the fact that his friends had managed to convince him to play tag, again, irked him quite a bit.

But that wasn't the worst part, his friends had decided to team up in order chase him around. 'Troublesome', he thought while trying to find a way out, preferably one which didn't involve his friends ganging up on him, and it didn't take long before he came up with a plan, it wasn't his finest plan, but it wasn't like what his father taught him applied to tag, so he had to improvise.

Just when he was about to put his plan in action however, he heard Naruto yelling; "What the hell! What's your problem?"

So he came out of hiding to find Sasuke and Choji behind Naruto while the latter was wrestling in the ground with another kid, said kid was wearing a gray shirt, black pants with sandals, and had two red fang marks running below his eyes. Shikamaru also noticed something else, there was something on top of Naruto, a dog, a small white dog was biting Naruto's head as if trying to help the other kid out. A little ways off from them, Ino and Sakura sat by a sobbing girl; she had short black hair and wore a violet long-sleeved shirt and white pants and sandals, she also had solid, pale eyes. 'A Hyuga', realised Shikamaru.

"Are those five your friends? If so, sorry about Kiba", heard the Nara.

"Huh?", he wondered aloud while turning around, when he did, he saw a kid around his age with short spiky dark hair, he wore a white long-sleeved shirt, a beige bandana around his neck which also covered the lower half of his face, gray pants and sandals, and had very distinctive sunglasses. "So the kid with the dog is called Kiba huh? I take it he is an Inuzuka, the crying girl over there is a Hyuga, and I'm guessing you're an Aburame", he said while pointing at Kiba.

"Exactly, my name is Shino. Her name is Hinata, she is very kind, but also very shy, which pisses Kiba off, those are Kiba and Akamaru by the way, they are both what you would call trouble-makers", explained Shino. "If I may ask, how did you know I am an Aburame?'

"The sunglasses", replied Shikamaru while shrugging. "Hot-headed eh, he might be able to keep up with Naruto. I'm Shikamaru by the way, nice to meet you", he added and offered his hand to the new kid who shook it gladly. "The other wrestler is called Naruto, and those over there are Sasuke… ", he explained while pointing at the Uchiha, "… and Choji", he continued and pointed towards the Akimichi. "The blonde sitting by Hinata is Ino, and the one next to them is Sakura."

Shikamaru then turned towards the kids wrestling on the ground, irritation evident in his eyes, "Hey Naruto! You can't just punch someone you just met", at this the other three boys nodded in agreement, "It's too troublesome", and at that, they all sweat-dropped.

Meanwhile, Sakura and Ino were trying to cheer the third girl up. They had gotten there just in time to see/hear Kiba yelling at her for 'apologizing too much', and as much as they thought that the boy might be right, he didn't have to word it in such an aggressive manner. The good news was, the girl was starting to calm down.

As she did, she looked up towards the girls helping her with a grateful look, "T-Thank you, and I'm s-sorry, I s-shouldn't be crying over small t-things like that."

"No, don't be, you can cry about whatever you want to, it's not healthy to bottle it up", said Sakura with a kind smile while Ino nodded at her words. "By the way, I'm Sakura."

"And I'm Ino", added the blonde.

"P-Pleased to m-meet you, S-Sakura-san, I-Ino-san. M-My name is H-Hinata", said a genuinely grateful Hinata.

"Nice to meet you Hinata, but, please, just Ino", replied Ino with a smile of her own, Sakura nodding in agreement.

Soon, the two boys stopped fighting, both very tired and visibly beat up. Their clothes torn, their faces dirty, and various cuts and bruises showing on their skin.

"I like you", said Kiba as he lay down on the grass, panting, "You sure know how to throw a punch."

"Woof!", agreed Akamaru, skipping beside Kiba.

"You're not bad either", replied Naruto with a frown while he assumed a sitting position, "For a jerk."

"What was that you bastard?!", Kiba was immediately ready to go again, mentally preparing himself to kick the blond's ass.

"Stop", interrupted Shikamaru, not wanting to sit through another wrestling match. "Why don't we just introduce ourselves, instead of punching each other?"

"Fine, but he has to apologize to that girl, he made her cry!", compromised the blond. Hinata was very surprised at that, and even blushed a little.

"No way!", argued Kiba, "I only told her the truth."

As he said this however, he felt two angry glares on his back, and when he turned around he saw two very angry girls, glaring daggers at him. He gulped, "Fine, fine. I'm sorry Hinata."

Naruto smiled as he extended his hands towards Kiba, "I'm Naruto, pleased to meet you!"

"I'm Kiba", he answered as he shook Naruto's hand, "And this is Akamaru", he added as he pointed towards his ever enthusiastic companion.

"Woof!", confirmed said companion.

"'Yo", greeted Naruto as he turned to look at the dog.

"I take it you two are also going to enter the Academy?", asked Shikamaru, more a statement than a question, interrupting them.

"Hell yeah!", said a smiling Kiba. "Wait, how did you know?"

"Well, you, for one, fight like someone who's had at least a bit of pre-academy training, which you wouldn't bother to get if you weren't going to enter the Academy. But even if that weren't the case, you are an Inuzuka, and he's an Aburame, so it wasn't hard to figure it out."

"Huh", was all Kiba could say, still processing what the other kid had told him. "Wait, wait, wait. How did you know which clans we are from? And what do you mean 'also'? Is one of you entering too?"

"Well", began the Nara, "The red fangs were a dead giveaway as to your clan, as were Shino's sunglasses combined with his quiet demeanor. As for the Academy, all six of us are also entering in two years."

Shino had to admit he was a bit surprised at this, "All six of you?" He could tell that the polite kid was an Uchiha, so that was a given, but Shikamaru seemed far too lazy, and Naruto too, well, loud, to be a ninja. Granted, Kiba was loud too, but he came from a famous clan, so he assumed he wouldn't have much trouble. After all, most in his clan were like him, and they had still managed to become respected shinobi. As for the fourth kid, he hadn't really done much, so he guessed the possibility was there.

"Yeah, all six of us", answered Choji, "Well, eight of us now."

"Nine of us, actually", corrected Shikamaru.

"Huh?", questioned Ino and Sakura.

"What do you mean nine?", asked Choji.

Suddenly realizing something, Naruto turned towards Hinata, "Are you entering the Academy as well?"

Blushing heavily at the direct question, Hinata turned her head to the side before answering, "Y-Yeah, I-I am"

"She is a Hyuga after all", clarified Shikamaru, to which no one reacted, either not caring that he realised that, or too used to him being one step ahead of everyone else.

Considering what he had just then learnt about the other kids, Kiba thought of an idea, "If we are all entering the Academy then we should meet up sometimes and train together", he said excitedly.

"I'm in!", agreed Naruto, as he figured that it was more time to spend with his friends, and training with even more people might be cool.

"I am curious as to how other clans outside mine act and fight, so sure, I agree", reasoned Sasuke, having never trained with anyone but Itachi and Kakashi, the latter of whom never really showed him much. And well, obviously Naruto, but he wasn't part of a clan, so he had no 'inherited' or ingrained methods or attitudes.

"I'm in, my dad is always saying I should try to train with other people more. So sure!" said Choji with a smile, seeing no reason not to.

"Yeah, my dad's the same, always going on about the importance of teamwork, so sure, I'll join", agreed Ino.

"Sounds pretty fun as well, so count me in", added Sakura

"Well", said Shino, "We should be able to at least learn some things from each other, seems like a good idea to me."

"I-If you all d-don't m-mind, I-I would like to j-join y-you as well", said Hinata.

'Oi, oi. Why are they all agreeing so easily', thought Shikamaru. It's not like he didn't like hanging out or training with them, but the percentage of hanging out was slowly shifting to allow for more training, i.e; effort, which sounded like a pain. As troublesome as it might be however, "Fine, I'm in too. It should be less troublesome than having to wait for you to finish in order to hang out."

"Awesome!", said Naruto, happy to have more people to hang out with.

And so they did.

As days turned into weeks, all nine of them began meeting up and having fun together, slowly but surely forming a strong friendship.

As weeks turned into months, they all continued what little training they did, all of them with their respective families, or in Naruto's case, Kakashi, and sometimes, the old man. None of them did much for training, it was mostly physical conditioning and very basic theory lessons. Per their agreement, they sometimes met and talked about their training, instead of playing or chatting away. All of them sharing what they had learned, curious about each other's progress.

As months turned into years they all grew a bit taller, a few of them outgrew some of their clothes. Soon, two years had passed since they had all met, and they all walked through the doors of the Academy for the first time.

 **A/N**

 **Hello, and welcome to my first story, hope you have a great time reading it.**

 **First and foremost, I want to tell you all that one of the main reasons why I write, is to improve my writing. In that spirit, do not hesitate to review in whatever regard you see fit. You can critique the story itself, the plot, my grammar, spelling, overall use of language, plot points, or just leave you thoughts, I encourage you all to do so.**

 **Also, while I have most of the story skeleton ready, and some chapters too. I do not, as of yet, know who will be paired with whom. Naturally I have some ideas, and in some cases I have already decided. In the case of Naruto, I am undecided, so if you wish to tell me your opinion, you may be able to persuade me. Do remember however, that this is not a poll, I won't decide on someone just because everyone loves them, I will select them based on how I feel they work for the story. Also, the girl to pair Naruto with must be either Ino, Sakura, Hinata, Hanabi, or Kurotsuchi. I know of other pairings, and actually like some of them, but these are the ones I think work for my story.**

 **Well, first and probably longest author's note out of the way, thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed.**


	2. Chapter 1: Team 7

Disclaimer: To my disappointment, I do not own Naruto. As things stand, I can only gather solace from the fact that you, whoever you are, most probably don't either, so I am not alone.

Warning: Spoilers from the anime and manga ahead, read at your own discretion.

Team 7

Iruka woke up very early that day, it was a very special day after all. It was the day his students were to take their graduation exam, and he was sure they would all do great. He stepped out of bed and headed straight for the bathroom, he turned on the shower and headed to the kitchen to boil some water as he waited for the shower to heat up. As the water began to boil, he drank a glass of water and returned to his room to take a hot shower.

After he exited the shower, he got dressed. He put on his dark blue shinobi pants and shirt, along with black sandals. He walked to the kitchen, where he used the water he had left to boil to prepare some tea as he cooked some eggs with bacon.

Having eaten a delicious breakfast, he stood up, grabbed his chunin vest and headband from the coat hanger, and put them on. He pocketed his keys and exited his apartment, headed for the academy, the pride in his stride and gaze evident to any who cared to look.

*Linebreak*

"I'm really sorry I had to fail you Naruto", lamented Iruka sincerely, chuckling at the blond stuffing his mouth full of ramen.

Quickly downing the noodles, Naruto turned towards Iruka, "Don't worry about it Iruka Sensei", he assured, his eyes steeled in unwavering determination, "All it means is that I now have to try harder than anyone else. I've just gotta keep on going, right?"

Shocked at his student's words, Iruka couldn't help but let out a small laugh, "You've really grown up Naruto", he said. "I'm very proud of you", he added with a smile.

"Of course Iruka-sensei", he responded, his eyes and smile widening at his long-time teacher's praise, "I'm gonna be Hokage one day after all, just you wait and see."

Iruka had never doubted Naruto, he knew the boy would achieve great things. But a part of him had always believed that Naruto might eventually give up on becoming Hokage, he had after all, no reason to want to lead or protect the villagers, or most shinobi for that matter. Somehow, Naruto's promise right then and there erased all semblance of doubt from his mind, he fully believed Naruto would achieve his dream. "Seems I have nothing to worry about anymore then." He then turned to Naruto, "I've got to go take care of student paperwork, so enjoy your meal Naruto", he said as he stood up and left Naruto enough money to pay for their meal.

"Sure thing Iruka-sensei, thank you!", replied Naruto happily.

With that, Iruka left for the Academy, a proud smile on his face.

"I'm really sorry to hear you failed your exam Naruto-kun", said Ayame.

"Don't worry Ayame-nee, I'll take it again, and again, and again, as many times as I need to, and one day, I'll become Hokage!"

Teuchi laughed at Naruto's enthusiasm, "We'll be waiting for that day then Naruto, make sure you come here to celebrate. When you get there, food's on the house."

"Awesome! I promise, just you wait!"

After finishing his meal, and paying for it of course, Naruto headed to the only place where he knew he would be able to really train. He knew that most of his friends were celebrating their graduation with their families, so he couldn't train with them. Kakashi had gone away on a mission and hadn't returned, and the old man's lessons were always boring, so he couldn't ask either of them. That left only one place, which would have been his first choice anyway, the Uchiha Compound.

When he got there, he walked through the empty streets on the way to Sasuke's house. Ever since the incident on their first day at the academy, the compound was always empty, from what he had heard, the whole clan was murdered by one of their own, leaving only three survivors. The place was like a ghost town since then, as not only was it inhabited, but civilians tended to avoid it out of fear, and no shinobi had much reason to be there.

He swung open the door of Sasuke's house, "Oi, Sasuke-teme! Izumi-nee, are you home?"

Almost immediately, a girl walked out of the kitchen to greet Naruto. She was now much taller than before, Naruto and Sasuke reaching just below her shoulders. Her long hair held in a high ponytail. "Hello Naruto-kun", she greeted with a smile, "Want some stew? I was just making dinner."

"No thanks Izumi-nee, I just had some ramen with Iruka-sensei", replied the blond with a smile of his own, "I was actually wondering if I could use the training grounds today."

"Yeah, Sasuke-kun told me about the exam, sorry you didn't make it. Sure, go ahead, we can't have you getting left behind by Sasuke-kun, now can we?", she joked mischievously.

Determination is his eyes, Naruto turned in the direction of the training area, "Hell no, I'll catch up to him in no time! Just you wait", he declared, "Speaking about him, did he go out again?"

"Yeah, just after he came back from the academy", she answered, a bit of sadness in her eyes, "Seriously, you'd think he'd take it a bit easier now that he graduated, but then again, of course he wouldn't."

Naruto sighed, it wasn't that he didn't understand how Sasuke felt. A week after the Uchiha massacre Itachi had mysteriously disappeared, and had left both surviving Uchiha alone. Coupled with the massacre, that had pushed Sasuke to train harder in order to avenge his clan and find his brother. Soon after, he became much more serious, and even began pushing most of their friends away. The only ones who wouldn't budge had been Izumi and himself.

The events had pushed Izumi to get her chunin promotion as fast as possible, so that she could provide for both Sasuke and herself. From then on, she always took care of both of them, acting much like an older sister for them.

"Don't worry about him, the teme's almost as strong as I am, he'll be fine", Naruto assured her, making Izumi laugh.

"It seems I have nothing to worry about then", she said with a smile, before turning around, heading back into the kitchen, "Have fun with your training Naruto-kun."

"Of course", he replied as he headed towards the training area, he had to improve.

Once he got there he decided to start with clones, as they were what he had to do for the exam. As much as he hated them, he guessed that if they were on of the deciding factors in graduating, they had to be somehow important.

So he did. For around two hours straight he trained on his clones, making and dispelling them, but train as he may, he saw no signs of progress. Every single clone he made turned out the same way, miserable.

Just as he was about to give up on the clones and try something else, someone called out to him.

"Hey Naruto-kun."

"Huh", was Naruto's answer as he turned around to see who was calling out to him. When he did he found his teacher, Mizuki, standing behind him with a smile on his face.

"Mizuki-sensei?", he asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Izumi let me in, I came here to talk to you", replied Mizuki as he sat down on the ground, patting a spot next to him, "Can you give me five minutes?"

"Sure", said the blond as he sat down next to the chunin, "What's up sensei?"

"I just wanted to check up on you. You know, to make sure you're okay after the exam and all."

"Oh, thanks then. But don't worry about me, I'll become a genin in no time!"

"So you already knew about the second exam?", asked Mizuki, "And here I was, worried that you had missed that class", he added, earning a look of confusion from Naruto. "In that case, my job here is done, good luck on this exam then", he said, standing up from his spot.

One.

Two.

"Wait, wait, wait", stopped him Naruto, rushing to his side, "What do you mean by second exam?"

"Oh, so you did miss that class then", reasoned Mizuki.

"Probably", admitted Naruto, rubbing the back of his head.

"Don't worry, it's nothing too complex", began the chunin. "All you have to do is steal a specific scroll from the Hokage Building's library without getting caught, and then learn a technique from it. Once you do, you'll graduate."

"All right, that means I can graduate today!", exclaimed Naruto, a plan already forming in his head, one which involved his original technique. "The old man will never see me coming."

*Linebreak*

"The kid has gone too far this time Hokage-sama!"

"He has really done it this time!"

"We never should have allowed the demon to enter the academy!"

The Third was dealing with many chunin and some jonin, all of them complaining about Naruto's latest incident. He knew they were right, they had to find him and bring him back, that last comment however, was too much. "First of all, the boy is no demon, he is a kid, you should all know that, your attitude is disgraceful", he said, anger and authority in his voice. "Nevertheless, we have to find him, that scroll is dangerous. You are all to begin searching for him, and bring him to me when you do. Dismissed.

The various shinobi in his office immediately sprang into action, spreading out across the village in search for the blond.

Together with the rest of his comrades, Iruka began his search of Naruto without missing a beat. He had to find him before anyone else did, who knows what others might do if they found him.

Knowing his student would probably hide in the forest Iruka headed straight there, and found who he was looking for. In front of him lay Naruto, sprawled on his back, his clothes and face dirty, his breathing heavy.

"What the hell are you doing here Naruto?!", he scolded the kid. "And why in the world did you steal that scroll?! Do you even know what it is?", questioned Iruka.

Looking up at the new arrival Naruto smiled, "Oh hey Iruka-sensei, you got here just in time", a huge grin on his face as he rubbed the back of his head. "It was tough, but I managed to learn one of the jutsu from the scroll, I've been at it for about five hours", he declared, pride in his voice.

'So that's why he looks banged up, he's been training all day', realised Iruka. 'But that still doesn't explain how he knew about the scroll, or why he stole it.'

"Now I finally get to show you my new jutsu, and pass this second exam."

Now that, he wasn't expecting. "Naruto", began Iruka, "What do you mean by second exam?"

"The second graduation exam of course, Mizuki-sensei told me about it, as I probably missed the class in which you told us about it", explained Naruto as if it were obvious. "One just had to manage to steal this scroll from the Hokage tower without being caught, and then learn a jutsu from it before anyone finds you. I did, so get ready to be impressed", he finished, putting up his hands in a hand seal.

Before he could do anything, Iruka interrupted him, "Naruto, there is no second exam."

"Huh? What do you me-", Naruto couldn't finish his thought before he was forcefully pushed away by Iruka. Landing on his face, he turned around to see his teacher leaning against a tree, multiple kunai sticking out of him, many more stuck to the tree and ground. Blood trailing from his wound, his face pained.

"Iruka-sensei! Are you ok?", asked Naruto in worry as he began to stand up.

"Don't come here Naruto!", yelled Iruka, "Run away!"

Before Naruto could ask what he meant, or why, someone else jumped down from the trees, standing some meters away from Iruka. His other teacher, the one who had told him about the scroll.

"Mizuki-sensei!", screamed Naruto, "Someone hurt Iruka-sensei!"

"Yeah, I know", said Mizuki as he turned to look at the blond. When he did, Naruto saw in his eyes the same cold, hateful glare the villagers gave him. '

Why is Mizuki-sensei looking at me like that?', thought Naruto, despaired that a person that had always treated him kindly was staring at him like that.

"Run Naruto! Mizuki must be after the scroll!", ordered Iruka, fearing that the chunin might hurt the blond. "I'll hold him back, so run!"

"Don't listen to him Naruto", began Mizuki, his eyes and voice cold, "He is probably in shock from his wounds. Hand me the scroll, when you do, your exam is over, you will finally graduate."

Naruto looked at them both, unsure of what to do, or what was happening. So he took the scroll and ran. If nothing else, he knew he could trust Iruka.

Smiling, Iruka pushed himself off of the tree, grunting in pain and effort. He turned towards his former friend,"Why?"

"It's simple really", laughed Mizuki, "That scroll will make me more powerful than you could ever imagine. But first I have to kill the brat, and now you as well. Well, I'm sure the village would thank me for killing him anyway, it would be like getting rid of a parasite."

"I won't let that happen. I won't let you kill Naruto before he even has a chance to start his path towards his dream", declared Iruka with unwavering determination.

"Come on", said a still laughing Mizuki, "You can drop the act now. The kid ran off who knows where, you can be honest now. You must hate him as much as we all do. Hell, you should probably hate him even more than someone like me. You have no reason to stop me from killing him. Not that I won't kill you now anyway."

This time, it was Iruka's turn to laugh. "You are blind Mizuki. I don't hate him, I care for him. You, just like the rest of the village can't see past your blind hatred. You are unable to see Naruto for who he is. He has lived a tougher life than most of us, he should by all rights hate the village and everyone in it. But he doesn't, far from it. He has made it his goal to become the leader of this village, and I will support that dream to my last breath. He overcame everything that was thrown at him, and never stopped. He always has a smile on his face, even when he is at his lowest, and he is always there to help others. In spite of everything, he has made great friends, and has grown into a very kind person. No student of mine has ever made me as proud as he has", declared Iruka, his eyes beaming with pride. "So there's no way that I am going to let you hurt him. Not for of your silly ambition for power. And not due to your inability to really see him."

Clapping sarcastically, Mizuki took out a kunai from his holster. "Nice, very nice speech Iruka. Well, it was nice knowing you." With that, he rushed towards him with his Kunai in hand.

Iruka was barely able to dodge out of the way, his wounds were slowing him down. Once he did dodge, he immediately shot at Mizuki with a kunai of his own.

Both kunai clashing, Mizuki kicked at Iruka's side, which he dodged by jumping over the kick. Having created an opening, and noticing that every move cost Iruka a lot of effort, Mizuki allowed the momentum of his kick to carry his body; twisting in mid air and lifting his other leg to kick at Iruka's head. Being in the air, Iruka had no way of dodging, and took the full force of the kick. He was knocked down by the kick, but as he was standing up, he received a second kick, this time to his midsection, causing him to cough up blood.

Knowing his opponent was hurt, Mizuki capitalized. He quickly brought down his hand, stabbing his kunai in Iruka's back, making him scream in pain, and quickly followed up by punching him downwards, forcing him completely to the ground.

Iruka knew he was done. He couldn't move, even breathing hurt like a bitch. He was however, glad that Naruto had gotten away.

"See you around Iruka", said Mizuki mockingly, driving a second kunai downwards, aiming for the neck.

Before he could make contact, an orange blur shot out from the trees, hitting him in the stomach, sending him back a meter or two.

Looking at his assailant, Mizuki saw Naruto standing protectively in front of Iruka, tears dripping from his eyes, anger on his face. Neither of them had noticed Naruto hadn't run away, he had hidden behind a nearby tree, worried about Iruka.

"Don't you dare hurt Iruka-sensei you bastard!"

"N-Naruto, r-run", said Iruka weakly, looking up at the blond.

"You should listen to him brat, I'm way out of your league", mocked Mizuki with a smirk, "Not that I would let you get away now anyway."

"I don't care", declared Naruto. "I'll pay you back for hurting him a hundred time over, with the technique I learned from your scroll", added Naruto with a smirk of his own, before making a hand seal . " **Shadow Clone Jutsu!** ", he yelled, as hundreds of clones appeared all over the area.

Seeing the shock in Mizuki's face, all the Narutos rushed him, taking advantage of his distraction.

Soon, Mizuki was knocked out cold, having taken a massive beating. Naruto was panting heavily, his training and his jutsu had taken a lot out of him.

"You alright Iruka-sensei?", he asked, sitting down next to him.

Struggling to a seating position, leaning on the tree. "Y-Yeah, I'll be ok", he assured, "How about you?"

"I'm fine, just a bit tired", replied Naruto honestly. "Am I in trouble sensei?"

"Hell no, Mizuki tricked you. We'll just explain everything to the Hokage and return the scroll to him", explained Iruka with a smile.

Deciding something, Iruka spoke up once again, "Hey, Naruto, close your eyes."

"Huh?", asked Naruto, confused at the request. "Why?"

"Humor me for a minute"

"Ok", agreed Naruto, closing his eyes. As he did, he felt Iruka take off his goggles and wrap something heavy around his head. He then opened his eyes to see Iruka smiling.

"Congratulations on graduating Naruto", said Iruka, poorly hiding the pride in his voice. Noticing the headband around his head, Naruto jumped him and caught him in a hug, which he returned. "As of right now, you are a shinobi of Konoha."

Remembering what Mizuki had said, Iruka made a decision. "Hey Naruto, come with me", he said in a serious tone, looking the blond in the eyes.

"Sure", he answered, a bit confused by the tone of his teacher's voice.

They both stood up and Iruka led Naruto through the forest. They walked for around ten minutes in complete silence before Iruka stopped, having arrived at the destination he had in mind the top of the Hokage Monument.

Iruka then sat down on top of the Fourth Hokage's head, and motioned for Naruto to do the same. He knew the spot was frequently visited by his student.

Following his teacher, Naruto sat down next to him before asking, "What's up sensei?"

The lights from the village giving it a warm glow in the moonlight, the cold night breeze brushing his face, Iruka steeled his resolve and turned to look at his now former student. "Naruto, I have something I need to talk to you about."

Noticing that whatever was on his teacher's mind was important, Naruto answered with a simple, "Sure."

Taking a deep breath, Iruka began. "As you know, thirteen years ago, on the 10th of October, a demon fox attacked the village."

Naruto nodded at the information he was already familiar with.

"In order to defend the village, a fierce battle ensued. As chaos spread through Konoha, every jonin available went to fight the fox, as chunin and genin evacuated the village. During the fight, the fox damaged and destroyed large parts of the village, and in consequence, killed a lot of people."

Again, Naruto nodded.

"The only person capable of holding back the fox was the Fourth Hokage, who, after a long battle, managed to kill the fox, sacrificing his life in the process."

Naruto nodded once more, they had been taught that in their early days in the Academy.

"However, the last part is not entirely true", explained Iruka, to a suddenly very interested Naruto. "While the Hokage did manage to defeat the fox, and he did forfeit his life in order to do it. He didn't kill it."

Naruto was now veritably shocked. His eyes wide as saucers, he was about to interrupt, a thousand questions in his mind, most when something along the lines of, 'What!?', or, 'What the hell!?' However, before he could, Iruka shot him a look that said, "Let me finish." And so Naruto did.

"Instead of killing it, the Hokage sealed it inside a newborn baby."

"Wait, Iruka-sensei, why are you-", Naruto suddenly stopped his train of thought as he connected the dots in his head, he may have been dumb, but he wasn't stupid. Newborn baby, October 10th…

" **What the hell!?** ", screamed Naruto, his eyes widening to epic proportions.

Despite the situation, Iruka couldn't help but chuckle at his student. He was glad he had decided to tell him, who knows how he might have reacted if the one to do so had been someone like Mizuki.

It didn't take long for Naruto's shock to wear down, being replaced by a look of dread on his face.

"Iruka-sensei…", began Naruto, his voice barely a whisper, too afraid of what the answer to his question might be. "Does that mean that I…"

Iruka interrupted him before he could finish. "No", he said, his voice firm, his gaze steady. "You are Naruto Uzumaki, shinobi of Konoha, not some demon fox."

Naruto nodded, taking Iruka's words to heart. 'No matter what, I have people like Iruka-sensei', realised Naruto, no matter how much doubt he had in his mind, he knew he had people who didn't care.

"Remember Naruto, you are not the burden you hold."

Once again, Naruto nodded. This time a small smile gracing his face.

*Linebreak*

"So", began the Hokage, pipe in hand. "You told him."

"Yes sir, I did", confirmed Iruka. "After the events of today, how Mizuki talked about Naruto, I decided that it was for the best if someone close to him were to tell him. At least now he knows why the people of the village hate him. I am however, prepared for any punishment you deem appropriate", he declared with unwavering confidence.

Replaying the events of the day in his head, Sarutobi sighed. He was happy that the blond had graduated, even if it had involved one of his chunin betraying him and threatening to hurt what was essentially his grandson. And even though Iruka had broken the law, he figured it was for the best. He wasn't planning on telling him yet, but now Naruto knew, and there was nothing any of them could do about it.

Sighing on more time, he turned towards the teacher, "It's fine Iruka, you made a judgement call and acted on it, I expect that of all shinobi. We just have to hope you were right. For now, make sure to get some sleep, you still have work tomorrow", decided the Third, a kind smile gracing his face.

"Of course!", said Iruka with a salute, before vanishing, leaving a pile of leaves behind.

*Linebreak*

All of the recently graduated genin sat, for what was probable to be the last time, in their classroom. Listening to their teacher intently as he talked about the responsibilities of a shinobi and the burdens one carries. They, however, were only listening waiting for the only thing they all cared about at the moment, the announcement of the teams they would be placed in.

"… very important that you all take care of each other, missions can be very dangerous. But that is also what your instructor is there for. Listen to everything they say, they are, after all, there to teach you and help you improve. All of us in the village are very proud of you for taking the first steps towards becoming shinobi. As of right now you are all adults, and carry all the liberties and obligations that come with that. Make me proud."

As boring as the lecture was, most of the graduates couldn't help but smile at that last part.

"All that said, let's move on to team announcements."

Now that caught everyone's attention, as they all turned to face their teacher as he went through the teams.

"Team 10, under Jonin Asuma Sarutobi, Choji Akimichi, Shikamaru Nara, and Ino Yamanaka."

It didn't come as a surprise to anyone, as much as they fought and bickered, they probably had the best teamwork of their class, so it was obvious they would be in a team together. That didn't mean that all three found it ideal.

"Great, stuck with ' _troublesome_ '", complained Ino.

"Troublesome", muttered Shikamaru.

For his part, Choji didn't mind either of them, he liked them both.

"Team 8, Under Jonin Kurenai Yuhi, Hinata Hyuga, Kiba Inuzuka, and Shino Aburame."

Humming in acceptance, one could see that Shino didn't mind his team, though he wouldn't have minded a teammate less loud than Kiba, but he was used to the Inuzuka.

A bit frustrated by getting probably the most silent team in Konoha's history, Kiba accepted it anyway. Both of them were good friends, and he had to admit, almost as good trackers as himself.

Hinata couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed at not being on a team with Naruto, but liked her teammates nonetheless, as loud as Kiba was, he always looked out for her, and Shino was one of the few people who didn't seem to mind her silent demeanor.

"Team 7, under Jonin Kakashi Hatake… "

Both Naruto and Sasuke were surprised at hearing the former Anbu's name, similar thoughts going through both their minds, 'Kakashi is taking on a team?'

"… Naruto Uzumaki,… "

"Yeah!", declared Naruto, happy with his teacher.

"… Sakura Haruno,… "

Sakura was a little disheartened at being on a team with the loudest of the class, it wasn't that she didn't like the blond, but if their third teammate didn't balance him out, she was sure she'd get annoyed very quickly. On the other hand, she'd heard a little about Kakashi from Sasuke and Naruto, so she was happy that her sensei was at least somewhat familiar to her.

"… and Sasuke Uchiha."

Sasuke couldn't help but smirk, glad to have a strong jonin as his instructor, and one he knew. And Naruto was a good friend, as annoying as he could be at times. Lastly, Sakura was ok, even though she had to outstanding skills, she was reliable as far as he could tell, even if she could be a bit clingy at times.

After Iruka finished with the teams, he instructed them to wait for their respective instructors to pick them up there, before leaving, still having paperwork to get done.

So they did.

They talked amongst themselves as they were picked up, team by team.

Eventually however, only Team 7 remained, and they were getting annoyed.

Finally, Naruto snapped, "Come on! You'd think the bastard would at least be early to meet his new students!"

"Well, for as long as either of us has known him, he hasn't once been on time", argued Sasuke, but he couldn't stop the tick forming on his forehead.

"To be honest, I always thought you were exaggerating when you talked about his tardiness", confessed an annoyed Sakura, "I mean, he has to be doing it on purpose."

"That's it! We're getting payback", decided Naruto as he approached the door with a mischievous smirk. Once there, he quickly pulled out a brush and some ink from his kunai pouch and got to work. Early in his academy days, Naruto discovered three things, first of all; seals exist, second; he had really good handwriting, which surprised all his teachers, and finally; seals are great for pranks. So he did the only logical thing, he went to the Third Hokage and asked him to teach him sealing. So he did, he taught Naruto the basics and gave him a book as a gift: " _A Sannin's Guide to Beginner Seals and Their Applications_ ", from which he learned a lot. He quickly realised that he enjoyed sealing, otherwise known as fuuinjutsu, and with a bit of practice, got quite good at it.

So he got to work, he drew a simple trigger/storage seal on each side of the door margin, stored some orange powder on each, and pushed a bit of chakra into both, activating them. Both of his teammates smirked, in Sakura's case more of a huge smile; they had both been on the receiving end of Naruto's pranks, and knew first hand how effective they were. For his part, Sasuke reasoned that Hatake deserved it, and Sakura quickly agreed.

All they had to do was wait.

So they did… again.

For about another hour.

After what seemed like an eternity, the door slid open triggering both seals, creating a thick, orange cloud. Out of the cloud, stepped Kakashi, coughing lightly, his white hair now orange, his clothes covered in powder. All three graduates chuckled at the prank.

"Oh", he deadpanned, "So I got you guys." Inwardly cursing the Third for teaching Naruto fuuinjutsu. As he took notice of the empty room he quickly added, "Why are you three alone?"

Ticks forming on all three of their foreheads, " **It's your fault!** ", complained Naruto and Sakura.

"Is it now?", wondered Kakashi, smiling at them. "Anyway, meet me on the roof in five minutes", he said before disappearing in a cloud of leaves.

Grumbling, his three new students headed towards the new meeting point. Once there they found Kakashi sitting on one of the bars made to stop people from falling, reading his infamous orange book.

Turning to look at his students, Kakashi closed his book. "Well, now that we're all here, why don't we begin with introductions. Tell me your names, likes, dislikes, goals, stuff like that."

"Sensei", said Sakura, "Shouldn't you begin, you know, to give us an example."

"Sure", agreed Kakashi, shrugging his shoulders. "Let's see. You already know my name, I like a lot of things and dislike some, as for my dream, well, I don't feel like telling you guys." Kakashi laughed internally as he saw his students' annoyed looks. "Why don't you go next pinkie?"

Sakura was getting really annoyed at their new sensei, but she continued anyway. "My name is Sakura Haruno. I like dumplings…", she quickly turned to look at Sasuke with a small blush, "… games, and pink. I dislike really loud people…", she threw a playful stare at Naruto as she said that, "… and spicy food. My goal…", she quickly turned to look at Sasuke again, "… is to become the best kunoichi I can be."

Kakashi nodded and turned to Naruto. "You're up Naruto."

"Right!", said Naruto. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I like ramen, plants, orange, and pulling pranks. I dislike fangirls…", at that he threw mock glare towards Sakura who stuck her tongue out in retaliation, "… and uncooked vegetables. My dream is to become the greatest Hokage of them all!"

Not surprised, Kakashi turned to his last student. "Sasuke, your turn."

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I like rice balls and training. I dislike sweets and annoying people. My dream is to surpass all Uchiha before me… and to find that man."

Kakashi knew exactly who Sasuke was talking about. If he was honest, he had been very surprised when Itachi suddenly vanished after the massacre, every Anbu had been.

"Well, pleased to meet you Sakura", greeted Kakashi with a smile. "Now that we know more about each other, it's time for your genin test."

All three widened their eyes.

"Wait, wait, wait, Kakashi-sensei…", began Naruto.

"Aren't we already genin?", finished Sasuke.

"All you did was graduate, now I have to decide if you're ready to become active shinobi", explained Kakashi. "With that in mind, you have the rest of the day off. Meet me tomorrow at nine in training grounds seven. I would advise you don't have breakfast, we wouldn't like you to throw up after all", announced the genin with an eye-smile, before vanishing yet again.

"Great", said Naruto.

Both his teammates nodded their heads in agreement.

*Linebreak*

Team 7 made a mistake, one they were sure they would repeat in the future. They arrived on time, to a meeting with their famously tardy sensei.

"I mean, this officially makes us idiots right?", asked Naruto.

"Yup", sighed Sakura.

"No question", agreed Sasuke. As all three dropped their heads in resignation.

Knowing they would have to wait two or three hours, they decided to make the most of it.

"Oi, teme, up for a spar?"

Having nothing better to do, Sasuke agreed. "Sure, let's go."

"What about you Sakura-chan?", offered Naruto.

"No thanks, I'll just watch."

So, Sasuke and Naruto distanced themselves from Sakura before separating.

Facing each other, they waited for their opponent to make the first move, and Naruto did.

Rushing towards Sasuke, he threw a punch that the Uchiha sidestepped before throwing a kick at the blond's torso, which he blocked by lowering his elbow. They continued their dance for about 20 minutes. Sasuke was good, possibly the best taijutsu user in their year, if it wasn't for Kiba. But Naruto wasn't far behind, his unpredictable, mostly improvised style and inhuman stamina made him a formidable opponent. Now that he had clones, he had become even more troublesome, as a certain Nara would say.

They eventually stopped after Sakura suggested that they should probably be rested for whatever test Kakashi had in mind.

And so they waited.

By the time Kakashi got there, they were all bored out of their minds.

"'Yo", he greeted.

"You're late!", screamed Naruto.

"Sorry, sorry", said Kakashi, rising his hands as if in surrender. "I got lost on the road of life", he deadpanned.

"Don't give us that crap!", scolded Sakura.

'What the hell is that even supposed to mean?', wondered Sasuke.

"Now that I'm here, how about we start the test?", said Kakashi, as he moved next to the three tree stumps that stood on the training grounds, and placed an alarm clock atop one of them.

He then turned towards his students, and took two bells from his pocket.

"You have fifteen minutes to take one of these bells from me, if you don't have a bell by the time the alarm goes off, you don't get to eat breakfast with the rest, and have to watch us eat while tied to one of these stumps", he said, patting one of the stumps for emphasis. "You also only get to become a genin if you have a bell by then. If you don't, you'll be sent back to the academy.

Noticing something, Sakura spoke up. "But sensei, there are only two bells."

"Yeah. So?"

Catching what he meant, all three got surprised looks on their faces, but got in their stances anyway.

"Begin", announced Kakashi, book in hand.

Without missing a beat, Naruto charged towards the white-haired jonin as his teammates instead chose to hide and wait for the right moment.

Getting close to Kakashi, Naruto threw a punch. The jonin easily caught it and threw the blond over his shoulder.

Regaining his balance, Naruto flipped himself in midair and landed on his feet, immediately rushing to attack again, this time throwing a barrage of kicks. Dodging them without much effort, Kakashi caught the last one and used it to yet again throw the blond.

Once again landing on his feet, Naruto created various shadow clones, all attacking Kakashi, who then proceeded to sidestep all of them, stabbing them with a kunai as he went past them, dispelling every single one.

'Isn't he terrible at clones?', wondered a very surprised Kakashi.

Naruto quickly created six more clones, not wanting to give Kakashi time to breathe. All seven rushed at the jonin from all sides, throwing a barrage of kunai at him. Skilfully dodging the projectiles, Kakashi noted how some of them then went on to hit another clone, dispelling it. Soon there were no clones left, all having been hit by each other's kunai. Only Kakashi remained on the clearing.

'Still wet around the ears I see', thought Kakashi, before realising something. 'Wait, where's the real Naruto?', just as that thought went through his head, his one visible eye widened in surprise. 'The kunai.'

Just then, the various kunai that had been scattered throughout the field began to glow, before each letting out a cloud of powder, completely obscuring Kakashi's line of sight.

Getting out of his henge as a kunai, Naruto rushed towards his sensei, having made sure to be as close as possible to him when he activated the seals on the rest of the kunai, reaching to grab one of the bells. Until he didn't, rushing through the air, he couldn't find the bells, or Kakashi for that matter.

'Not bad', thought Kakashi, squatting on a tree branch, away from Naruto. He decided to focus on his other two students. 'He tricked me, and got very close to the bells. Not to mention he actually used seals in battle', reflected Kakashi, knowing that, while quite a few shinobi learned fuuinjutsu to one degree or another; even among masters of the art, using seals in battle was a very rare thing. He couldn't help but compare Naruto to another blond he had once known.

Putting it on the back of his head for the moment, he looked down to see Sakura, who was convinced she was successfully hiding.

He noticed that her strategy and technique were academy perfect, just as taught. But they lacked effort, she didn't seem to really want to get a bell, as if she was simply going through the motions, no motivation aside from her present objective. He also noticed her, for a genin, very well placed set of traps, which would, judging by the smoke tags, do nothing but obscure his vision.

'Damn', thought Sakura. 'Kakashi-sensei fought Naruto without breaking a sweat. Well, at least he fell for the trap', she thus resolved to take the opportunity and grab one bell herself as she began standing up.

Making sure not to alert her, Kakashi jumped down from the tree to stand behind her.

"Looking for someone Sakura?", he asked very nonchalantly.

Squealing in surprise Sakura quickly leapt backwards and triggered her traps, smoke spreading around the area.

She had been caught by surprise, 'But at least I managed to catch him in my trap', she thought, as she swiftly headed into the cloud of smoke to grab a bell. 'But how did he escape Naruto's?'

She got half an answer when she couldn't find Kakashi.

She stealthily walked inside the cloud towards where her sensei should have been, yet she found nothing but smoke. Resolving to simply continue looking, she did. Yet again, she found no trace of the jonin.

In the end, she decided to get out of the cloud and re-strategize. She was however, having trouble getting out of the cloud, as much as she walked there always seemed to be thick smoke around her. Stuck in her own smoke, she began to panick.

Kakashi watched Sakura, or rather the cloud she was in, attentively, witnessing her failure to get out of it. In his limited vision he saw her walking in circles inside the smoke.

"Let's see how you handle a layered genjutsu Sakura", he said to no one in particular with a smirk. From what he understood, Sakura should have no trouble detecting such a normal genjutsu, his however, was not conventional.

Taking note of his second student's shortcomings, and leaving her to get herself out his genjutsu, he moved on to the third.

To his surprise, he found said student standing in waiting just far enough to not be caught by either cloud.

He raised his visible eyebrow in wonder, "Are you going for a frontal assault as well?", he asked, thinking his student should have realised he stood no chance.

"It's the only way to test my skills", reasoned Sasuke in determination as he got in his stance.

'Uchiha Style', noticed Kakashi, 'I guess it's to be expected.'

"Besides", continued Sasuke, "The dobe there-", Sasuke pointed towards the orange cloud, "- almost had you", he finished as he rushed towards Kakashi.

"Is that so?", asked Kakashi, lifting his knee to his torso to block a strike from Sasuke, not taking his eyes away from his book.

Continuing his assault Sasuke threw a barrage of kicks and punches, all of which were blocked by Kakashi, who had an almost bored look on his face.

As their exchange continued, Sasuke was slowly but surely growing annoyed at being unable to hit his new sensei. 'Kakashi-sensei was never this strong before', he noted, thinking back to when the jonin had trained with him and Naruto in the past.

Deciding that his taijutsu wasn't enough, Sasuke jumped back and quickly went through hand seals.

" **Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu** ", he said, as he made a sort of funnel with his hands and put it to his mouth, breathing out a large ball of fire towards Kakashi.

Hardly surprised, as he had already known Sasuke was able to use elemental ninjutsu (which didn't make it less impressive for a fresh genin), the jonin easily dodged the technique, quickly appearing behind Sasuke.

"Too slow", explained the white haired shinobi.

Mentally cursing, Sasuke quickly leapt back, again going through hand seals.

" **Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Flower** ", he announced. He then threw a bunch of shuriken and again breathed out fire, this time onto the projectiles, igniting them as they closed in on Kakashi.

'That's new', thought the jonin as he dodged each star, 'Two fire jutsu?'

Deciding to make things tougher for his student, Kakashi closed in on him, leaving the burning shuriken behind, and threw a kick at his head, which Sasuke dodged.

Having created an opening, Kakashi quickly went through hand seals before declaring, " **Earth Style: Suicide Decapitation** " as he sunk into the ground, leaving a confused Sasuke looking for him.

'Where the hell did he go?', wondered Sasuke as he observed the ground, ready to attack at the slightest sign of movement. He however, never got his chance, as soon as he felt two hands wrap around his ankles, he found himself neck deep in the ground, looking up at Kakashi.

"Good luck getting out of there Sasuke", quipped the jonin, as he decided to hide and see if his students would be able to find him, and vanished in a pile of leaves.

Again squatting on a tree branch, Kakashi reflected on his third student's abilities. 'Good taijutsu, he is adept at his clan's style, but a bit overconfident in its strengths. Elemental ninjutsu by a fresh genin is rare enough, he knows at least two of them, and is adequately proficient at both. Evidently an Uchiha prodigy.'

*Linebreak*

When the powder from Naruto's trap finally dissipated, he saw no trace of Kakashi, only a cloud of smoke… and Sasuke buried in the ground.

'What the hell?', thought Naruto, 'He's completely owning us.'

Understanding they stood no chance, he approached Sasuke. Squatting to meet the Uchiha's eyes, he began.

"Teme, there's is no way any one of us will beat him alone", he reasoned in a mostly serious voice, his eyes determined, "Let's work together, all three of us. Better for two of us to advance, than no one. What do you say? We can decide who gets the bells later."

Knowing his friend was right, Sasuke agreed. "Ok, let's do it. Help me get out of here."

Using all of his might, Naruto managed to pull Sasuke out of the hole he was in, "Dude, you're getting fat", teased Naruto, panting at the effort.

"Says the ramen addict", retorted Sasuke with a smirk.

"Whatever", was Naruto's answer. "Wait, where's Sakura?", he asked.

"There", was Sasuke's answer as he pointed towards the already dispersing cloud of smoke. "Kakashi-sensei caught her in a genjutsu."

"Oh", said Naruto. "Let's get her out then."

"Agreed. Now that the cloud is dispersing it should be easy enough", he said as they both began walking towards Sakura.

Sakura was getting really frustrated, 'I am sure this is a genjutsu', she thought as she yet again disrupted her chakra… "So why can't I dispel it!" Sakura was supposed to be good at that sort of thing, so not being able to get out of one was really frustrating.

Once they got to her Sasuke dragged her away from the cloud, forcing her focus away from the smoke, thus breaking the simple genjutsu.

Sakura stumbled under Sasuke's pull, and found herself no longer trapped in smoke. Turning around, she saw her two teammates looking at her, Sasuke's hand on her wrist.

"You're welcome", deadpanned Sasuke. Naruto nodded in agreement.

"Huh?", questioned Sakura as she realised what had happened, "Oh, right, thanks", she said with a small blush.

"Anyway", began Naruto, "I was telling Sasuke that we should team up, it would give us a much better chance of getting the bells."

"But there are only two of them, one of us will have to go back to the academy", argued Sakura.

"Doesn't matter, better one of us than all three", replied Sasuke.

Thinking it over, Sakura quickly nodded her head in agreement. "Ok, what's the plan?"

Unbeknownst to either of them, Kakashi was watching them from atop a tree… again, and was quite glad that his students had managed to understand the point of the test. 'Well, let's humor them and see how their plan goes', decided Kakashi, even though he was already set on passing them anyway.

Once he saw they were about ready, he jumped down in front of them.

"So", he said, his expression neutral, "You're all ganging up on me."

His only answers were Sasuke shrugging his shoulders… and Naruto rushing towards him, several of his clones doing the same.

Kakashi dodged all their attacks easily enough, but the clones didn't let up. He was surrounded, fighting on all sides, for every kick he dodged, another three were thrown at him. He decided that it was better to begin dispelling them, and so he did, punching each clone as soon as he dodged them. Naruto however, created more clones to replace the ones that were lost, and he didn't seem to be running out of chakra.

Kakashi had to admit, he was surprised, clones were impressive enough for a genin, and Naruto seemed to have an endless supply of them.

He was broken out of his thoughts as he saw a barrage of flaming shuriken headed for him, 'Sasuke', he realised.

Thinking quickly, he grabbed two clones by the legs and threw them towards the jutsu, blocking most of them, and dispelling the clones, which Naruto again replaced. Dodging the few remaining Shuriken wasn't much trouble.

Not wanting to give him time, Sasuke and all the Naruto's quickly engaged him again, all of them throwing kicks, punches, headbuts, kunai.

'Wait', realised Kakashi, 'Kunai.' Indeed, as he had thought, he looked at the kunai as he dodged them, they all had seals drawn on them. 'Interesting.'

His exchange with his students was still ongoing, they refused to stop attacking, when he saw the seals begin to glow.

Fully expecting the seals to activate and probably let out a cloud of smoke or powder, he was surprised when he heard something burst next to him as Sakura jumped at him from where a kunai had been stuck on the ground… and grabbed the bells. It was then that Kakashi saw the seals still glowing, doing nothing.

'Good plan', though Kakashi, smirking. Glad to have been given the team.

Curious to see what they would do next, he simply observed them.

For her part, Sakura couldn't believe she had actually gotten the bells. Sure, that was the plan, but it was still surprising to see it worked so well.

Her teammates weren't much different, both had been inwardly expecting the plan to fail.

Her shock wearing down a bit, Sakura turned to them.

"So", she began, "What now?"

They all knew she was referring to the bells.

Neither of them were really sure. Eventually however, and a bit nervously, Sakura spoke first.

"I-I think you guys should get the bells", she said, shocking all three guys. "I mean, you both have much better or important reasons to move on, and you did most of the work on our plan anyway."

They all also noticed that the was shuffling her feet, clearly uneasy.

"Hell no!", replied Naruto, "In that case, it should be you two. I didn't even pass the exam, you both did."

Three members of the team were again surprised.

"However", added Naruto, "I have no intention of going back to the academy. So we should be fair about it, let's draw straws."

Thinking about it for a second, Sasuke found Naruto's logic to be accurate, "I agree, seems like the fairest thing to do."

"A-Alright, let's do it that way then", agreed Sakura, shocked by her teammates.

As soon as she was about to go grab some stick however, Kakashi spoke up.

"Stop, stop", he told her, "I have another idea."

All three turned to him, curious as to what he would suggest.

"How about… you all pass", he exclaimed, his one eye smiling widely.

"Huh?", was all any of them could say.

"Sensei", began Sakura, "Didn't you say that-"

"I know", interrupted Kakashi, "But the point of the test was to see if you could work as a team. To test if you could put personal gain, or even orders aside, for the sake of your comrades. And you three did brilliantly. After all, those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum, remember that."

As what Kakashi had said slowly dawned on them, none of them could help but smile, they had passed.

"So congratulations on officially becoming genin", he said, still smiling.

"Hell yeah!", exclaimed Naruto.

"That's all for now then. As of this moment, Team 7 is officially active", he announced. "We will meet again tomorrow to begin training and take our first mission, make sure to bring all your usual training equipment, and to have a healthy breakfast."

All three genin were ecstatic, none of them could deny it. They were now officially on their way to achieve their dreams, they were all now one step closer. And to celebrate, Naruto dragged them both to Ichiraku.

As he saw his students fade away towards the village, Kakashi couldn't help but smile again. Remembering he had an appointment however, he leaned on a tree and continued reading his book. After two hours, when he was sure he'd be decently late, he shunshined to his destination.

When he got there, he saw everyone already waiting for him.

The Third Hokage and his jonin instructors had been waiting for Kakashi for an hour. 'Granted, he is unusually early', thought the Third.

"You're late", chastised Asuma.

"Sorry, sorry. I ran into Tora on my way here, so I had to return him."

Everyone present sweatdropped. Even though they knew it was an excuse, they were all familiar with the infamous cat.

"Anyway", began the Hokage, not wanting to drag things out even more. "Now that we're all here, let's begin."

"Yes!", saluted most jonin.

"Very well. Team 12?"

"Fail", replied a jonin.

"Right. Team 11?"

"Fail."

"Alright. Team 10?"

"Pass", replied Asuma.

"Good. Team 8?"

"Pass", replied Kurenai.

"Great. Team 7?"

Every jonin was experienced enough to never be surprised in combat, to always keep their composure. Well, as Kakashi would prove right there, almost always.

"Pass", he replied with a smile.

"What!?", questioned just about everyone in the room.

"What can I say?", answered Kakashi. "I got quite a team."

 **A/N**

 **Well, that's the second chapter. Hope you enjoyed.**

 **What do you think of the fight scene, as before, I encourage all sorts of feedback.**

 **I don't think I mentioned it before, but I am planning on a Friday release schedule, whenever I think I won't be able to make it the next week, I'll try to let you know at the end of the week's chapter.**

 **Thanks to everyone who followed, reviewed, and/or added to their favourites.**


	3. Chapter 2: 'D' Bane of Our Existence

Disclaimer: About three weeks in, and I still do not own Naruto. But I will, one day, probably, possibly, maybe, could happen… I probably won't.

Warning: Spoilers from the anime and manga ahead, read at your own discretion.

Chapter 2: 'D' Bane of our Existence

Sasuke was not a morning person, he knew it, his friends knew it, it was no secret. It was just his luck then, that it was routine for shinobi to begin training or missions early in the morning. In auto-pilot, he headed for the shower, turned it on, and headed in. The cold water ran down his head, to his back and legs, and to the ground, waking him up. After leaning beneath the water for about ten minutes, he got out of the shower, the cold had done its job, he was now feeling ready to do stuff. He headed out of the bathroom and got dressed. He put on his white shorts and blue, low collared shirt, and black sandals. Now clothed, he headed to the kitchen, where Izumi was already making breakfast, rice balls wrapped in dried tuna, showered lightly with tomato sauce. Sasuke was very happy to have her around, even if he didn't always show it, she stuck by his side even when he tried to push her away, and always supported and cared for him.

Noticing him from the moment he was going down the stairs, Izumi turned towards him with a kind smile, "Morning Sasuke-kun. Ready for your first day as a genin?"

"Morning Izumi-nee", replied Sasuke, a small smile of his own. "Yeah, I'll just have breakfast and head to meet my team", he explained as he sat down on the small kitchen table.

"Well, dig in then. No time to lose", said Izumi as she walked towards the table, placing Sasuke's plate in front of him, and serving him some tea to go with it.

Swiftly but politely, Sasuke finished his food, "Thanks for the food Izumi-nee. I'll be heading out now."

"No problem", assured Izumi. "Have fun", and with that, she returned to making her own breakfast.

Heading for the door, Sasuke took his kunai and shuriken pouches and strapped them both to his right leg. He put on his black headband, which he always left by the door. He grabbed his bow and quiver and slung them both over his shoulder. Finally, he grabbed eight water bottles and three soldier pills, and stored them inside a storage seal Naruto had drawn on his quiver. Confident that he was ready he went out the door and headed for the training grounds.

*Linebreak*

Mornings were easy for Sakura, she had always been a morning bird. Not needing an alarm, she woke up a good two hours before she and her team were to meet up. From the smell coming into her room, she knew her father was already making breakfast. Knowing she had time to spare, she headed into the bathroom, drew a hot bath, and took her time with it, enjoying every moment. After about half an hour, she finally decided to get out and get dressed. Heading back into her room she chose to put on a medium length, sleeveless, straight-cut, red dress, black bike shorts and sandals, and her blue headband. Now ready, she headed down the stairs. Once she did, she headed straight for the kitchen table, where her mother was already drinking her morning tea.

"Good morning mom", she greeted with a smile as she sat down. "Morning dad."

"Good morning Sakura", replied her mother, also smiling. "Ready for today?"

"You bet", replied a determined Sakura.

"Well, I'm sure you'll do great", said her dad, heading towards her, plate in hand.

"Damn right I will!"

"I'm sure you will, so eat your breakfast and get going, we wouldn't want you to be late", replied her father with a kind smile.

"It wouldn't really be a problem if I were to be late", said Sakura, already expecting Kakashi to be late, as she began eating her breakfast.

Both parents nodded slightly, they were aware of Kakashi's reputation.

"Thanks for the food dad", she said as she was done eating, and headed back into her room.

Wanting to make sure she missed nothing, she began.

"Shuriken pouch? Check", she said as she strapped it to her right leg.

"Kunai? Check", as she threw some in together with her shuriken.

"Towels? Check", as she wrapped three of them on the strap that held her pouch.

"All set then", she decided, again heading downstairs.

"Bye mom and dad", she waved as she opened the door.

"Bye darling", they both replied, as she headed out the door, her destination clear.

*Linebreak*

Elsewhere in the village, the third member of Team 7 was making sure everything was ready. He had woken up early that morning, and had been unable to go back to sleep due to excitement. Deciding to make the most of his time, he took a quick shower and got dressed. Noticing it was way too hot outside for his favourite jumpsuit, he instead donned a short-sleeved white shirt with orange sleeves and back, blue pants, and black sandals.

Once dressed he put some water to boil and proceeded to water his plants. Taking his time on each one, he made sure they were receiving the appropriate amount of sunlight. Hearing the kettle cry, he returned to the kitchen, poured half of the water into a cup, in which he also inserted a small tea bag.

The other half, he used for ramen. His ramen however, was not from a cup, during his time in the academy, he had asked Ayame to teach him to make ramen, and so she did. He wasn't nearly as good as them, but found it to be more satisfying to make it himself, rather than to eat from a cup. It was nothing fancy, he just boiled some water, added some stock, waited for the flavour to set in, added the noodles, and then added whatever garnish he was in the mood for; that day, it was eggs and pork cutlets. His breakfast made, he sat down and enjoyed it.

Once he was done eating he returned to his room to get his things ready, sitting on his desk. He drew various storage, explosive, trigger, and disruption seals and stored them all inside a small pouch that he then strapped to his right leg. Done with his seals, he grabbed his kunai pouch and strapped it right next to the smaller one he had used for the seals. He also remembered to seal a jacket, just in case, so he chose his orange one. He then grabbed his brush and three ink bottles, and put them all in a storage seal drawn on his larger pouch. He also remembered to grab his book on sealing, and seal it next to the rest of his equipment; reading it had become a part of his training, and he was, by then, almost done with it.

'I have to remember to ask the old man for another one', he made a mental note. He was already on his third book, having mastered the contents of the first two around a year before graduating. The second one detailed the specifics of basic seal enhancement and alteration. His current one explained the process of seal disruption.

Confident he had everything he needed, he grabbed his forehead protector from his night table and looked himself in the mirror.

'Today I finally begin my journey to being Hokage', he thought, full of determination as he put on his forehead protector. 'I will give everyone no choice but to acknowledge me!'

He then headed to the door and left his apartment, ready to meet his team, he just needed to make another stop before he did.

Walking through the streets of Konoha, he arrived at his destination after about ten minutes. Looking up at it, Naruto couldn't help the feeling of nostalgia that rushed over him as he stood in front of the Academy. Putting those thoughts on the back of his mind for the moment, he entered the building, walking in the direction of his former classroom.

Once he got there, he found the door open, and sitting on the des, the person he was looking for,

"Iruka-sensei!", greeted Naruto with a smile.

"Oh. Hello Naruto!", answered a surprised Iruka, as he wasn't expecting the blond to visit. "What brings you here? Don't tell me you got sent back?", he questioned with a smirk.

"Hell no!", retorted Naruto. "I just thought I'd stop by to tell you I passed, and I am taking my first mission today!", announced Naruto, obviously very excited.

"That's great Naruto", congratulated Iruka, very proud of his student. "I'm sure you'll do great."

"Of course!", agreed Naruto.

"Well, get going then", said Iruka, smiling warmly, "We wouldn't want you to be late."

"Right, take care then sensei", said Naruto as he waved him goodbye. "Not that I would make a difference if I were late", he added under his breath as he left the room.

Iruka chuckled at the last part, Kakashi was famous in Konoha for his tardiness after all.

Naruto left the academy and headed straight for the training grounds, barely able to contain his excitement.

When he arrived, he found Sasuke and Sakura already there.

"Yo!, Sasuke, Sakura", he waved.

"Hi, Naruto", greeted Sakura.

"'Sup", said Sasuke.

Unfazed by the fact their sensei hadn't arrived, the three simply talked and waited, by that point expecting him to be tardy.

For about two hours they waited, talking about anything and everything that came to mind.

Eventually however, Kakashi arrived, walking nonchalantly towards them.

"Morning", he greeted cheerily.

"You're late… again", said Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke nodded.

"Sorry, sorry, a black cat crossed my path so I had to take the long way around.

'Bullshit', thought all three genin, as they sweatdropped.

"Anyway", diverted Kakashi, internally laughing at his students' reactions. "How about we officially begin our first training session as Team 7."

That immediately got their attention.

"Hell yeah!", exclaimed Naruto.

"Yeah", nodded Sakura in agreement.

"Let's", added Sasuke with a smirk, obviously excited.

"Well then", began Kakashi. "I got a pretty good idea as to your abilities from yesterday's test, so this is what we'll be doing. First, we will train your chakra control, I will teach you tree-walking, and have you practice it until you either get it right or I feel you've done enough. Then, we'll take a ten minute break, after which I will test you three to find out your elemental affinities, normally one would wait until they're a chunin, or at the very least advanced genin, before training with elemental chakra, but seeing as one of you already does, I figure it should be okay."

The three nodded, all curious as to which affinity they held.

"Then, we will take another short break, followed by stamina training, I will spar with all of you, three on one until none of you can move."

The last part made them gulp, but two of them were excited nonetheless, and the third would not be left behind.

"After that, we will go have lunch, and then take our first mission. Any questions?", he asked, smiling with his eye.

"None", replied all three.

"Very well, let's get started then", he said as he walked towards the trees on the training grounds, his students following close behind.

"This exercise is quite simple. All you have to do is concentrate chakra on your feet and then walk up the tree", he explained as he walked up the tree with ease. "Use a kunai to mark your progress whenever you go up the tree", he added as he jumped down. "Begin."

Naruto was confident he could walk up a tree, it looked very easy when Kakashi did it after all. He ran towards a tree, pushed chakra to his feet, and took his first step. That was as far as he got, the moment his foot connected with the tree, an explosion sent him back, denting the tree slightly.

Landing on his butt, he stood back up and faced the tree. 'Too much chakra and I get pushed away', he realised as he ran at the tree again.

Watching the explosion caused by Naruto, Sasuke decided against being blown up. Noticing the problem with adding too much chakra, he ran up the tree. His first step was firm, so he took another one, that one stuck as well, going for the third he felt himself slip, and only had time to slash the tree right above where his foot was before he landed painfully on his back, right next to the tree. 'Too little and I slip', he noticed as he stood up and rubbed his back. 'Got it', and so, he tried again.

Watching her teammate's failures, Sakura quickly deduced the problem with chakra amounts and gave it a try herself. She ran towards the tree and stepped on it. Noticing she was sticking, she took two steps more.

'I'm doing it', she thought excitedly.

Just then however, she felt her control slip, and the tree burst a little beneath her foot pushing her back. She slashed the position above her foot and stumbled as she landed. Looking at the tree, she smiled when she noticed she had climbed about four feet.

'That's impressive', thought Kakashi. 'That's almost a third of the way up.'

After his first try, Naruto had continued nonstop, inching upwards along the tree. Each time he tried, he was pushed away.

'Damn', he thought after a particularly nasty fall. 'This is way harder than it looks.'

Not one to be discouraged however, he ran up the tree again. He had managed three feet, and was getting better with every attempt, even if not by much.

Sasuke was doing better, even if just a little. Having also continued trying without stopping, he was now consistently managing between four and five feet. However, he found himself frustrated by the fact that he was getting stuck, his improvement was less and less noticeable every time he tried.

'I still haven't found the perfect balance', he reasoned. And so, he went at it again, determined to get to the top.

Sakura was actually very happy, as she found that she was doing the best out of the three. After some tries, she found that she never went less than six feet along the tree, sometimes even seven. She felt like every attempt taught her a little.

'But I still feel like I'm missing something', she complained, unable to figure out why her balance slipped every time.

Deciding to see if she could find whatever that was, she tried again.

Watching them, Kakashi couldn't help but be impressed. Sure, he knew a little about all of their abilities, especially Naruto and Sasuke, but they still managed to impress him.

He had expected Naruto's chakra control to be the worst out of the three, as his reserves were much higher than the others'. Even if he had been right, he had been surprised by the speed at which Naruto noticed his mistakes and corrected them, he was, without a doubt, the one making the most consistent improvements.

Sasuke wasn't that much of a surprise, his control was pretty good, and he was getting better. However, Sasuke's decision to begin by erring on the side of less chakra instead of more, had caught him off guard. It was an intelligent approach, there was no denying that, but it was one he thought no genin would take, it was a very collected decision, and had helped Sasuke understand the exercise much faster than if he had done it the other way around.

He had expected Sakura to be the best out of them, but he wasn't prepared by how good she was. Her control was far above the normal genin's, she just had to get used to regulating chakra and she would get the exercise in no time. 'Hell, she might have even less trouble with water-walking than this', he thought.

They were all good, and he was sure they would become incredible.

After watching them run up and fall down from trees for about an hour and a half, he stopped them, happy with their progress.

"You can all stop now", he announced.

Falling down from the tree one last time, Naruto turned to look at his final mark, he had made it five feet up. Happy with his results, he looked at how his teammates had done.

Sasuke was also content with his results, he had gotten out of the small hurdle that had stopped him for half an hour, and had finally managed to climb seven feet along the tree. "Almost halfway there", he noted with a smirk.

No one was more satisfied than Sakura however. In the end, she had gone up ten feet, and had even managed to do it after reducing her speed a little.

"That was exhausting", she said, the effort catching up to her. She felt her whole body was heavier, and her legs ached. She had pushed herself quite a bit.

Her teammates weren't doing much better, exhaustion had caught up to them at the same time. Both felt the pain in their legs and struggled much more than normal to move around.

"You all did great", said Kakashi, smiling. As he took in the state of his students, he knew they were taking things seriously. "Time for our little break."

All three genin immediately fell to the ground, resting their legs. As they did, Sasuke grabbed his quiver and pushed a bit of chakra into the seal on it, taking out four water bottles.

"There you go", he said as he handed one to each of his teammates.

"Life-saver", said Naruto, quickly emptying the bottle.

"Thanks", said Sakura as she took it. She looked quite pale, obviously tired.

Sasuke then offered the fourth one to Kakashi.

"Why not", said Kakashi, amused by his students. "Thanks, Sasuke."

"No problem", he replied, finally putting the bottle to his lips.

Once they were all a bit refreshed, Kakashi spoke up. "Sakura, I see you did quite well. However, it gets harder the higher you go. In your case, I can only recommend you try to get used to modulating your chakra, if you do, you should manage the exercise very soon."

"Right", replied Sakura.

"Sasuke, you started out great, but slowed down as you went on. First of all, I applaud your restraint, one should always exercise caution when possible. However, in this case, it's not enough. Try to get a sense for the failure points, find where the threshold lies."

Sasuke nodded in understanding. Thinking back to his various attempts.

"For your part Naruto, you will have to get used to smaller adjustments. You have a lot of chakra, which means that even if you think you're only adding a small amount, you could be adding way too much. Whenever you feel like that's the case, try to go even smaller, see how it works out."

Naruto hummed, signaling he understood. In his mind, he was comparing what Kakashi had told him to when he first started making seals. How he constantly added too much chakra to activate them and they ended up blowing up in his face.

"Well, your little break is over", he said as he pulled four paper squares from his pocket, and handed one to each of them. "All you have to do is channel a bit of your chakra into the paper, and the way the paper reacts will tell us which element is your affinity", he explained as he channeled chakra to the fourth paper, in demonstration. They all watched as the paper suddenly wrinkled all over.

"Right now, the paper is reflecting my affinity towards lightning."

His students nodded in understanding.

"Cool", said Naruto, his eyes wide. "I'll go first", he said, already channeling his chakra into the paper. Once he did, they saw the paper slit clean in half.

"It seems you have a wind affinity", explained Kakashi. "That's very rare in Konoha, but I think you'll find it useful. We could even ask Asuma to give you a few pointers."

"Awesome", replied the blond with a smile.

"I'll go next", said Sakura. When she channeled her chakra, the piece of paper crumbled into dirt and got carried away by the wind.

"It seems you are earth", noted Kakashi. "I think I'll be able to help you quite a bit, as I tend to like earth jutsu."

"Thanks", replied Sakura.

"Guess I'm up", said Sasuke. As he pushed his chakra into the paper, half of it began burning, while the other half became wet and damp. After a second or two however, the burning half was put out by the other one, and the whole paper ended up wet.

"It seems you have a primary affinity to water, with a secondary one to fire", pointed out Kakashi, quite surprised. "Fire is a very common affinity in Konoha, especially for the Uchiha, so you should have no trouble finding jutsu to learn or people to ask for advice. I myself have built up a decent library of fire techniques. Your primary affinity is surprising, as water is very rare for an Uchiha. Regardless, you should also find some who wield it in Konoha. Again, I have some experience with it."

Sasuke nodded, understanding all that Kakashi said, already knowing some of it. If he was honest, he was surprised as well.

"What now?", asked Naruto.

"As you know, elemental chakra is used for most regular ninjutsu, and can be added to most other forms of chakra manipulation in order to change the effect or efficiency of a technique. With that in mind, I will begin training you all as to the best way to harness you affinities", said Kakashi. As he did, he opened one of the scroll pockets on his vest, and pulled out a small scroll. He pushed some chakra into it, releasing a cloud of smoke. He now held eight slightly larger scrolls in his hand.

"I have two jutsu here for each of your affinities", he explained. "Today I will teach you the basics for them, and you will review them whenever you have free training, understood?"

All three nodded.

"Good", he said. He then threw two of them at Sasuke. "Those two hold the Fire Style: Dragon Bullet and Fire Style: Flame Flower jutsu."

"Right", said Sasuke.

"Those are Earth Style: Earth Wall and Earth Style: Fissure", he told Sakura, as he threw two scrolls at her.

"Naruto", he said, throwing him two scrolls as well. "They are Wind Style: Gale Palm and Wind Style: Mountain Wind."

Finally, he threw the last two to Sasuke. "Water Style: Water Whip and Water Style: Water Trumpet."

As Sasuke caught his last pair of scrolls, they were all ready to begin.

"One more thing though", added Kakashi. "In order to become jonin, one is generally expected to have, among other things, mastered two chakra natures. There are exceptions of course, but this is normally the case. One can master an element even if they don't have a natural affinity for it, but they will find it much harder. In the spirit of starting early, I can teach you all, especially Sakura and Naruto, the basics of lightning style, as it is my natural affinity. Of course, I can teach you as well Sasuke. If any of you wants to learn another nature, then you can just ask each other, you have four of them covered after all", he explained.

Thinking it over for just a second, all three found that they liked the idea, and so they agreed.

"Sounds cool", said Naruto.

"I would like that", said Sakura.

"Wouldn't hurt", said Sasuke with a smirk.

Kakashi smiled. "Just remember, it will take you much longer to learn it than your natural affinities, so don't expect it to be easy."

"Right", they all nodded.

"Let's get started then", announced Kakashi. "Spread out a bit so you all have room to work. I will explain the basics to each of you, beginning with Sasuke, then move on to the next, and leave a clone to help you."

Quickly, the three genin spread out along the field, leaving more than enough space between them. Kakashi created two clones and walked over to Sasuke.

"Ok, as you already know some fire manipulation, how about we start with water?"

"Sure", replied Sasuke. "I am curious as to how I'll do."

"Very well. I assume you are familiar with the leaf-burning exercise?"

"Yeah", answered Sasuke. "Izumi-nee explained it to me."

"I also assume you've completed it?"

"Right. I managed it consistently around my second year at the academy."

"Good, that makes things easier", said Kakashi as he sat down, and instructed Sasuke to do the same. "This exercise is similar to leaf-burning. In order to accomplish that one, you heat up your chakra, and focus it on the leaf. In this case, I want you to separate your palms slightly, and then focus on condensing your chakra, you should eventually be able to create a small sphere of water out of air", explained the jonin as he did just that, a liquid ball forming between his hands. "Any questions?"

"No", replied Sasuke as he turned to focus on his hands. Closing his eyes, he concentrated chakra to his hands, he tried to close in on it from all sides, trying to form the sphere. Once he opened his eyes, he found that he had only managed to form a few drops of water that fell to his hands. "Again", he said, determined to get it right, as he tried again.

Seeing Sasuke had gotten the idea, Kakashi created a clone and left it with him, in case he needed help, and then moved on to Sakura.

"Right", began Kakashi, motioning for Sakura to sit down. "The earth exercise is simple. You just have to place both hands on the ground, and then try to use your chakra to shape the earth, in order to create a small mound beneath your hands." Just like before, as he explained, he performed the feat himself. "Got it?"

"Yeah, I think I do", replied Sakura, nodding her head. She then placed her hands on the ground and focused her chakra into them, trying to picture it forcing the earth to change shape, pulling it out of the ground and into her hands. Feeling something move below her hands, she moved them out of the way. When she did, she saw that she had created various small distortions on the earth.

'Impressive', thought Kakashi. "Remember Sakura, earth is firm, you can't just push or direct it. You have to change its shape, think of it like creating a sand castle, or working with clay, using just your chakra", he explained.

"Right", said Sakura after thinking about it for a minute. 'Shaping clay. I think I get it.' She tried again, picturing her chakra pulling the earth and pushing it together, trying to change its shape. Once again moving her hands to the sides, she saw she had improved, she had formed various little clumps of earth. "Yeah!", she exclaimed. 'I'm not done', she thought, trying again.

'Not bad', noted Kakashi. 'Her control really is impressive. Well, I'll let her work on it.' Kakashi then moved to his third student, leaving a clone with Sakura.

"All right!", declared Naruto. "Let's do this!"

Chuckling at his student, Kakashi directed him to sit on the grass. "The wind exercise goes like this", began Kakashi He grabbed a leaf from the ground and sandwiched it with his hands. "You take a leaf and press it between your palms, then you focus your chakra to it, just like you did with the chakra paper, until you cut the leaf." When he was done explaining he separated his palms to reveal the leaf had been cut straight through.

"Cool", said Naruto. "Let's go!" Naruto grabbed a leaf and pressed it between his palms, channeling his chakra into it. After a moment, he separated his hands to find he had only been able to make a small cut on the edge of the leaf. "Damn it", he said. "I can do it!" So he went at it again.

"Naruto", interrupted Kakashi, holding up his hand. "Try to think of your chakra as a blade. Wind chakra is generally used as a cutting tool. For this exercise try to make your chakra as sharp and focused as you can."

"Sharp and focused", repeated Naruto. "Got it!" Again, he pressed his hands on the leaf and pushed chakra into it. Opening them up again, he saw that he had managed a cut about double the size of the last one, even it if was still smaller than it should. "All right!", he exclaimed.

Yet again, Kakashi's expectations had been blown away by his students. Judging by their progress, they would have the exercises down by the end of the week. Sasuke was good, a prodigy. But that could only take him so far, and it seemed like Naruto gave him the extra push to go further. Naruto himself benefited from their rivalry, he never stopped trying, determined to catch up and be better. Even if Sakura's control was the best among them, it wasn't only that. Kakashi noticed that she was always pushing herself, she refused to get left behind by the other two. 'To learn elemental jutsu by your first week as a genin, not bad', he reasoned.

After watching them and giving them pointers here and there for an hour, he approached Sasuke again.

"Stop, Sasuke", he said. "You're doing great. Let's move on to practicing your new fire jutsu."

"All right", agreed Sasuke, standing up. "Which one first sensei?"

"Why don't you choose?", decided Kakashi. "Fire Style: Dragon Bullet shoots a stream fire from the user's mouth. It can also be used to ignite other projectiles, similar to your Phoenix Sage Flower. Fire Style: Flame Flower creates three balls of fire that hover above ground until the user drops them, either one by one, or all together. It can prove very effective when combined with taijutsu."

"Let's do the Dragon Bullet, it sounds similar to my Fire Ball, and should be easier to learn. Giving me more time with the other one."

"All right", agreed Kakashi. "Good choice." Moving to stand next to Sasuke, he explained the jutsu. "As you said, this one is very similar to creating a fireball, the only difference is that, this time, you have to let out your chakra continuously, creating the stream, like so." After explaining, Kakashi went through hand seals and breathed in a large amount of air. " **Fire Style: Dragon Bullet** ", he announced as he breathed out a large stream of fire towards an empty spot in the clearing, surprising Naruto and Sakura, who were still going with their exercises.

"Sorry", apologized Kakashi.

Muttering something about irresponsible teachers, both went back to work.

Sasuke just sweatdropped at the entire thing. "R-Right", he said, as he prepared to try the jutsu himself. Going through the required hand seals, Sasuke focused his chakra on his stomach, then moved it up to his lungs; " **Fire Style: Dragon Bullet** " he said as he pushed the chakra out of his lungs, through his mouth. Being familiar with a similar jutsu, Sasuke actually managed to form a small stream, though it was very briefly.

"Just like that", said Kakashi. "But you're pushing it all out in a single burst. Remember, the point here is to maintain a constant flow of fire."

"Yeah", said Sasuke. "I get it." He went at it again, for another hour.

By the end of the second hour, Kakashi was satisfied. All three were making great progress with their exercises, and Sasuke had managed the new jutsu by the end, even if he still needed way too much chakra to pull it off.

"That's enough", announced Kakashi, stopping them. "Let's take another break." They all sat down, Sasuke again giving them a water bottle each to refresh them.

"Naruto", said Kakashi as they rested. "You don't get to keep the scrolls I gave you, as copying them down could be good training for your seal-making. I want you to copy both scrolls and return the originals to me", he said as he unsealed two empty scrolls from his vest and handed them to the blond.

"All right", replied Naruto. Not wanting to waste time, he immediately began copying the jutsu into the new scrolls. He didn't have much trouble doing it, it just took a bit of time. After fifteen minutes, he was done. He checked both scrolls to see if he had made any mistakes. Finding none, he handed the originals back to Kakashi. "There you go sensei."

"Thanks, Naruto", replied Kakashi with a smile. 'That was fast.'

"All right", began Kakashi. "Break's over. However, before we spar, there are two things more."

His three students turned to him, focused.

"First, I'll show you the exercise for lightning, you will practice on it whenever you have free training, and try it for a bit before going to bed. You will do this until you master it. When all three of you do, come to me and I'll give you two lightning jutsu for you to learn. Understood?"

"Yes sensei", replied the genin.

"Good", he said. He then picked up a leaf and closed his hands around it. "For this exercise, you have to focus your chakra into your palms and separate them, the objective is to get the leaf to float between both hands." As he explained, the three watched as the leaf indeed began floating.

"Awesome", said Naruto. Though all three were impressed.

"Well, that's it", said Kakashi. "Good luck with it. Now, for the spar. In order to make this spar challenging, and to really test and improve your stamina, I forbid you all from using anything aside from taijutsu."

All three gulped.

"Also", he added as he unsealed three sets of weights from one of his best pockets. "You are to wear these as we fight. Of course, you will take them off afterwards. From now on, you will use them every time we spar or train on stamina. Got it?"

"Yeah!", answered his students.

"All right then. Put these on", he said, throwing a set of weights to each of his students. "One on each leg, and one on each wrist."

As they caught the weights, they all stumbled back, them being heavier than they had expected. They all put them on and walked around for a second, trying to get used to the feel of the weights. Once they were done, they turned towards Kakashi, ready to begin.

"All right then, seems like you're ready", he said. "Well then… begin."

As soon as he said that, all three ran at him as fast as they could, which, considering the added weight, wasn't much. Once they got close, they began throwing kicks and punches at him, all of which he dodged with ease. He noticed that they sometimes got in each other's way as they attacked, obviously not used to fighting at the same time. He also noticed however, that they weren't faring as horribly as normal genin would, it was evident that they were doing their best to adjust their strategies to work with each other.

'I should start them on team tactics and planning', thought Kakashi as he dodged a punch from Sakura.

As the spar continued, Kakashi focused on dodging their attacks, weaving between them with ease and skill. Whenever he felt that they were getting used to the weight or slowing down to compensate, he would start to push more, sending out a punch or two that they would have no choice but to block, the weights adding more power to them. They were slowly but surely getting worn out.

They were also getting frustrated. None of them had been able to land a single hit on Kakashi.

Eventually, Naruto had had enough.

"Hey, Sakura! Help me out here!", he screamed. Right after he said that he began moving faster, pushing past the pain of the weights, determined to press Kakashi.

"Got it", she replied as her eyes widened, realising what Naruto had in mind. Immediately, she also started to rush Kakashi. Both of them ignoring the effort it took to move even slightly faster, they showered Kakashi with kicks and punches, forcing him on the defensive.

'Not bad', thought Kakashi.

Naruto swung a kick at Kakashi, which he jumped over. Capitalising, Naruto threw a second kick with his other leg, which Kakashi took hold off and used to flip himself in the air. Seeing her chance, Sakura jumped at Kakashi, aiming a kick at his head.

'Damn', thought Kakashi. Not wanting to give them the pleasure of landing a hit, he again grabbed the kick that was thrown at him, and used it to propel himself to the ground, keeping an eye on Sasuke, who hadn't done anything yet. He soon swallowed his words.

Just as Kakashi was about to land, Sasuke rushed and flailed a kick at him. Reacting quickly, Kakashi sidestepped the kick, never turning his back to his students.

Taking advantage of his position, Sasuke threw a roundhouse at his sensei's side.

Showing his skills and reflexes, Kakashi leaned out of the way of the kick, avoiding it.

"Naruto!", yelled Sasuke as he followed up with a three-punch combo, which Kakashi again dodged.

"Yeah!", replied the blond, turning to look at Sakura. "Ready?", he asked.

"Let's go", she replied.

The two then rushed in to support Sasuke, throwing indiscriminate punches, always trying to surround him. Once they had done it, Naruto and Sasuke ran at him, Sasuke locking Kakashi in a taijutsu exchange, Naruto simply jumped at him. Just as Naruto was about to make contact, Sasuke jumped back. Kakashi took advantage of the space by also jumping back, evading Naruto.

The blond smirked as he flew past Kakashi, Sasuke immediately engaging him again.

Naruto made sure to land next to Sakura, and once he did, he grabbed her by the waist and shoulder, and, just like he would with one of his clones, threw her at Kakashi.

Sakura couldn't help but yelp a little at the sudden contact, even if she had expected it. She ignored it however, and focused on punching Kakashi, who had been so focused on his spar with Sasuke that he could do nothing but take the fist head on, as it collided with his face.

The three genin were shocked. Sure, that had been their plan, but they hadn't actually expected it to work as well as it did. As Sakura landed, she turned to face Kakashi and quickly got in her stance.

"I think that's enough for today", said Kakashi. 'They actually got me, not bad.' The jonin felt like he had been saying that a lot in regards to his team.

As soon as he said that, all three dropped to the ground for the third time that day, the adrenaline quickly leaving their bodies, the pain and exhaustion taking over. 'Damn', they all thought.

"Well, how about we go get lunch then?", asked Kakashi with a smile.

*Linebreak*

"We're here to take a mission Hokage-sama", explained Kakashi, standing in front of the Third's desk, his three students behind him. After their training, they had eaten lunch, which Kakashi bought, and rested for a while. At around three o'clock, they headed to the Hokage's office to finally take their first mission.

"Very well", responded the Third with a kind smile as he went through some papers, which Kakashi knew were mission requests. How about this one?", he suggested, handing a piece of paper to Kakashi.

"It's perfect", answered Kakashi after reading the mission request over. "We'll take it."

"I'll prepare your reward for when you return then", said the Hokage. "Good luck out there." As he said it, he couldn't help but laugh inwardly, a team's first D-rank was always amusing.

"Thanks", said Kakashi with a nod, before turning to his team. "We better get going then", he told them.

As they exited the office, Naruto spoke up. "So, what's the mission sensei?"

His teammates leaned closer, also curious.

"Well", began Kakashi. "It seems like someone's gone missing, so we, and by that I mean you, are going to find them and bring them back."

"So kind of like a rescue mission?" asked Sakura.

"Of sorts."

"What do you mean?", asked Sasuke.

"Well", replied Kakashi, rubbing the back of his head. "This is who you're looking for." As he said that he showed them the picture of their target.

"Is that…", began Sakura.

"… a cat?", finished Sasuke.

"Yup", answered Naruto, nodding his head. " **Why the hell are we looking for a cat?!** "

Kakashi simply shrugged his shoulders. "Because he got lost."

"I can see that!", answered the blond.

His teammates sweatdropped.

"Well then", said Kakashi, trying to appease his student. "Let's get to it, shall we?"

An hour later, the three genin were running through rooftops, chasing what they had discovered to be a very fast feline.

"How can a cat be outrunning us?", asked Sakura, panting. Multiple scars covered her arms and face, remnants from the time they actually got close to it and it fought its way out.

None of them were faring much better than she was. Both Naruto and Sasuke were also covered in scars and out of breath. They were already dead tired from their training, and chasing the cat around wasn't helping.

"Catching one cat shouldn't be this hard damn it!", complained Naruto as he jumped from one rooftop to the next.

"Damn cat", added Sasuke, following his teammate.

It didn't take long after that for Naruto to snap.

"Ok, that's it!", he exclaimed. "We're not gonna be chasing it around all day." After saying that, he put his hands up in a hand seal and created two dozen shadow clones.

"Sasuke, Sakura, come up with a plan. I'll try to push it into a corner."

"Right", replied Sakura, her mind already working.

"Sure, just don't let it get away", quipped Sasuke.

"As if", answered Naruto, sticking out his tongue.

Sasuke turned away from Naruto and faced Sakura. "What's the plan?"

"I don't know", admitted Sakura. "But we need to trap it somehow. We're never going to just catch it."

"We need to set up a trap then", reasoned Sasuke. "And then simply have Naruto lead it straight there."

"Right", agreed Sakura. "How about ninja wire?", she asked. "Did you bring any?"

"I didn't", admitted Sasuke, mentally berating himself for forgetting.

"Damn."

"Yeah", said Sasuke, it was a good plan.

Sakura hummed in frustration as she tried to think of something else. "Wait", she said, and idea popping up in her head. "How about your bow?", she said. "Could you shoot it?"

"Well yeah, but we need a net or something", said Sasuke with a smirk, it was also a good idea, but their mission wasn't to hunt the thing. "Naruto!", he yelled, catching the blond's attention.

"Come up with something yet?!", replied Naruto.

"Yeah!", answered Sasuke. "I need your jacket", he said, Sakura catching on to what he wanted it for.

"What for?!", asked the blond.

"Just give it to me already!"

"Fine! Fine", he said, and threw his kunai pouch at Sasuke, before turning to catch up to the clones chasing the cat.

Sasuke caught the pouch and unsealed the jacket, already knowing where it was.

"All right", he said, nodding to Sakura, who nodded back. "Let's do it."

Sasuke handed the jacket to Sakura and stood up. Once standing, he took his bow from his back, grabbed a dull-tipped practice arrow from the quiver and pulled it back on the bow string, and took aim.

"Sakura", he said, getting her attention. "Make a small hole on the back of the jacket and stick it on the arrow."

She quickly pulled out a kunai and did as Sasuke said.

Once everything was ready, Sasuke focused.

"Naruto!", he yelled yet again. "Get ready to catch!"

"Yeah!", assured the blond, still chasing after the cat.

Sasuke held his breath to still his aim, he focused on the moving cat, tracing its path. He felt the summer breeze on his skin, learning its speed. He tilted the arrow slightly, trying to get used to the added weight of the jacket. Once he was ready, he let go of the string, and watched the arrow intently as it flew through straight for the cat, almost as if chasing it.

The arrow hit the cat on its side, startling it as the jacket began to wrap around it.

Not wasting a second, Naruto immediately jumped at the cat, grabbing it and closing the jacket around it, making sure it couldn't escape.

The whole team let out a sigh of relief as Naruto caught the cat, relieved to be done with it.

Right after Naruto caught it, Kakashi jumped down in front of him.

"Great job", he congratulated, smiling with his eye.

"You could have helped, you know?", asked Sakura, jumping down next to Naruto.

"Scratch that!", added Naruto, clearly annoyed. "You **should** have helped!"

"Now, now", tried to appease Kakashi, raising his hands in surrender. "These missions are supposed to be training."

"Lazy pervert", muttered Sasuke.

"Let's just go and finish the mission", said Sakura, her face betraying her exhaustion. "I want to take a bath."

So they headed straight to the Hokage's office, none of the three genin ever taking their eyes off of the orange bundle, fearing the cat might escape.

"We're back old man!", said Naruto once they got there, annoyance evident in his voice.

"I assume everything went well?", asked the Hokage, pointing to the bundle in Naruto's arms.

"They did great", answered Kakashi, smiling.

"Good to know", said the Third with a kind smile.

As he said it, a large woman burst through the door. "Is my Tora ok?!"

"Yeah", said Sasuke. 'We are the ones who aren't', he added in his head.

Sakura then took the bundle from Naruto and handed it to the woman. "There you go."

"Oh Tora!", exclaimed the woman, unwrapping the cat from the jacket and pulling it into a tight hug, which the cat evidently hated. "Mama's been so worried!"

'Poor thing', thought Sakura.

'Screw that cat, it deserves it', though her teammates.

The woman then left with her cat, leaving only the five shinobi in the room.

"Well then", said Hiruzen, and pulled out four envelopes from his drawer. "Here are your rewards." He handed one to each of them.

"Wait, wait, wait", interrupted Naruto after taking his. "He gets part of the reward as well?!", he asked, pointing at Kakashi.

"Naturally", answered the jonin with a smile. "It was a team mission after all."

"The hell it was!", complained Naruto.

Sasuke and Sakura simply glared at their sensei.

"Now, now", said Kakashi. "I think we're all tired. Why don't you all head home for the day, we'll meet again tomorrow. Same place, same time."

Too tired to complain, the three genin simply accepted and started heading out of the office, Naruto grumbling about 'lazy senseis.

"Naruto", said the Hokage before they could leave. "I would like you to stay behind for a minute. You too Kakashi."

"Sure", said Naruto, turning to face Hiruzen.

"See you tonight then, dobe", said Sasuke, waving goodbye as he exited through the door, Sakura close behind him.

"Yeah, see you guys later", replied Naruto.

Once the three of them were the only ones left, Naruto spoke. "So, what's up old man?"

Kakashi had to admit he was also curious.

"Well, Naruto, Iruka let me know he told you the truth about the day you were born", said the Third, looking both tired and apologetic.

Kakashi's visible eye widened.

"Yeah", said Naruto, rubbing the back of his head. He still wasn't sure what to think of what his teacher had told him. "He did."

"How are you feeling?", asked the Third.

"Honestly", replied Naruto. "I'm not sure. I mean, it's a lot."

"I understand. Take your time", assured the Hokage, giving the blond a warm smile. "But remember, it's better to talk about it when you're ready than to bottle it up. Maybe share it with some of your friends."

"Yeah", said Naruto, still looking conflicted. "I will, thanks."

Silence reigned over the room for a minute, as the evening sun flooded the room through the windows, all their faces acquiring a red tint.

"Hey old man", Naruto broke it. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course Naruto-kun", replied Hiruzen.

Naruto steeled his nerves. "Why me?", he asked, his eyes watering.

Hiruzen sighed. Kakashi's face fell.

Silence again came over the room, the three present thinking about Naruto's question

"There was no other way", replied the Hokage finally. "The Fourth had to protect the village, so he had to seal the fox. I'm sorry you had to get the losing end of the solution."

"Why didn't you tell me before then?!", asked Naruto, a few tears falling from his eyes.

"I'm sorry Naruto", replied the Third, regret in his voice. "The Fourth wanted the village to see you as a hero, so I tried to make that happen by forbidding anyone to speak about the sealing. I thought it best you didn't know until you were ready", he explained. "It seems I may have been wrong", admitted Hiruzen.

Naruto was yet again confused, he didn't know what to feel. A million emotions were battling in his head. "I-I…", he began.

He was interrupted when the door flew open, a blue and yellow blur entering the office.

"Prepare to hand the title over gramps!", exclaimed the little kid that had just entered. His most obvious feature was a blue scarf he wore, which was obviously too many sizes too large for him. He ran towards the Hokage, shuriken in hand, prepared to strike… and tripped… on the scarf.

Kakashi and the Hokage sweatdropped.

"Who did that?!", demanded the child as he stood up. "Who tripped me?", he asked, looking around, his eyes landing on Naruto. "It was you wasn't it? You were trying to foil my plan, weren't you?!"

Kakashi and the Hokage sweatdropped again.

"The hell I was!", exclaimed Naruto as he walked up to the boy and grabbed him by the scarf. He was definitely not in the mood to deal with the kid.

Just then, a slim man dressed fully in black, complete with sunglasses, burst through the open door, and saw Naruto holding the kid.

"Naruto!", he said, anger evident in his voice. "Let the honourable grandson down this instant!", he ordered.

Kakashi glared at the man, whom he recognized as Ebisu, an 'elite' teacher, as he didn't appreciate the tone he was taking with his student. "Well then Hokage-sama, I'll be leaving now", he said, heading for the door. "I leave **my** student in your care", he said as he walked past Ebisu, making the underlying meaning in his words as obvious as possible. "See you tomorrow Naruto."

Naruto just nodded. "Sure."

Ebisu gulped, he had understood. "Naruto, put the Hokage's grandson down for the love of god."

"This is the old man's grandson?", asked Naruto.

'He won't dare hit me now, just like everyone else', thought the kid. "Go ahead", he taunted. "Hit me if you dare."

"Like I care!", said Naruto, and drove his fist down on the kid's head, before walking out, feeling quite angry.

After walking for fifteen minutes with no particular destination in mind, he decided that he had had enough of the kid who had been following since he left the Hokage building.

"All right", he said as he approached a wooden fence and pulled a cloth with a wood pattern held up the wrong way up, giving the disguise away, to reveal said kid hiding behind it. "What do you want?"

"I knew you were good. Only a great ninja would be able to see through my perfect disguise", he said, making Naruto narrow his eyes. "I want you to teach me!"

"Huh?", was all Naruto said.

"It was you wasn't it?", asked the kid. "The one who used some weird technique to defeat my grandpa."

Naruto couldn't help but laugh a little, remembering how he had knocked out the Hokage with his original jutsu.

"So what if I am?", asked Naruto, still not in the mood.

"I want you to teach it to me so that I can defeat gramps and become Hokage."

Even in his bad mood, Naruto couldn't help but laugh again. "Sure, why not", he said after wiping some tears from his eyes. "Follow me."

Naruto then led him to a park, and found a nice, clear area where they could train.

"All right. First things first", he said once they got there. "What's your name?"

"I'm Konohamaru boss", declared Konohamaru.

"Boss?", asked a confused Naruto.

"Yeah, I'm your apprentice now", explained Konohamaru.

"Oh well", decided Naruto. "Why not?"

"All right, teach me your technique boss, please", requested Konohamaru again.

"Yeah, yeah", he said, and began explaining the technique to Konohamaru, even performing it himself to give him an example of how it was done.

An hour and a half went by, and Konohamaru still couldn't get the technique down. He would succeed sometimes, but he mostly failed miserably.

"For the hundredth time…", began Naruto.

He couldn't finish however, as he was interrupted by the arrival of Ebisu.

"Get away from Naruto, Konohamaru. Ignore whatever he's trying to tell you!", exclaimed the tutor. "Come with me, we don't want you to stray from your shortcut to being Hokage."

At that, Naruto let out the biggest laugh he'd had in a good while.

"Oi", he said to Konohamaru, still laughing. "Is he an idiot?"

"Huh?", asked Konohamaru.

"How dare you?!", complained Ebisu. "I am an elite tutor, studying under me is the fastest shortcut to becoming Hokage!"

"All right", said Naruto, determination in his eyes as he got closer to the special jonin. "Listen to me, there is no shortcut to being Hokage, it is a long road, one that takes effort and determination!", declared Naruto.

"Don't worry boss", said Konohamaru before Ebisu had a chance to speak. "I'll deal with him." He put his hands up in a hand seal. " **Sexy Jutsu!** ", he announced as a cloud of smoke covered him, only to disperse and reveal a naked, drop-dead gorgeous brunette, with just enough smoke lingering to protect 'her' privacy.

"Nice", admitted Naruto.

"What kind of perverted techniques are you teaching the honourable grandson, Naruto?!", questioned an exasperated Ebisu.

"How is he immune to the jutsu boss?!", asked a very shocked Konohamaru.

"Don't worry", said Naruto with a smirk. "I'll take care of him." He made a hand seal. " **Harem Jutsu** ", he declared, as a cloud of smoke covered him, along with the whole clearing. When it dispersed, it revealed dozens of beautiful blondes, all cuddling together, approaching Ebisu.

"Wha-", was as far as Ebisu got before he fainted out of excitement.

"That was amazing boss!", cheered Konohamaru. "It seems like I still have a long way to catch up to you. You are my new shortcut to being Hokage."

For the second time that day, Naruto hit Konohamaru over the head.

"Hey!", complained the kid. "What was that for?!"

"I'll say it again, there is no shortcut to being Hokage, you have to become strong on your own two feet, through hard work", explained Naruto. "Why do you want to be Hokage anyway?"

"Well", said Konohamaru as he nodded at his boss's words. "You see, my grandpa named me Konohamaru after the village, but no one ever calls me that. It's always honourable grandson this, honourable grandson that, no one sees me for me. So I'll become Hokage, and then everyone will have no choice but to see me."

Naruto smiled, he liked the kid. "Well", he began. "It's not like you could be Hokage anyway."

"What the hell?!", yelled Konohamaru. "Who are you to decide?! I thought you were cool. I don't want you to be my boss anymore."

Naruto just laughed. "Well", he said his eyes full of determination. "I'll be the one to become Hokage, so you'd have to beat me in order to do it."

Konohamaru's eyes widened. "I still don't want to be your apprentice then", he said. "From now on I'm your rival!", he declared. "I'll fight you for the title!"

"Get ready to lose then", said Naruto with a smile. "I look forward to it."

"Just you wait, I'll surpass you and every other Hokage before me!", said Konohamaru. He then left, intent on getting even more training.

"I better go home myself", said Naruto as he watched his new rival leave. 'I still have to take a shower and get changed before tonight', he thought.

So he headed home. Once he got there, he headed straight for his room, and threw his sandals on the floor. He went to the bathroom and started the shower. He undressed and got in once he saw the steam form from the hot water.

He hadn't noticed how tired he was and how much his body ached until he got in. Once he did, and the hot water hit his head and back. Everything faded away. His muscles relaxed, letting out tension he didn't know he was holding. The pain in his limbs slowly melted away. Even his bad mood left his body to make way for bliss. He stood under the stream of water for who knows how long, just letting the water wash everything away. After who knows how long, he got out, his body already feeling much better.

He headed into his room and looked at his clock.

"Seven thirty", he said. "Perfect."

He approached his wardrobe and pulled out a pair of black pants, a red, long-sleeved shirt, a blue jacket similar to his orange one, with white details, and black sandals.

He got dressed and headed out, not wanting to pick up on Kakashi's tardiness.

As he headed out, he felt the cool night breeze against his face.

Ten minutes later, he arrived.

"Yo!", he greeted, his hand up. He was still some feet away from the entrance to Yakiniku Q, but so was the new arrival.

"Oh?", responded Shikamaru, looking up. "Hello Naruto", he greeted, before noticing something. "Hey, what's up with the scars?"

"Oh, just some demon cat earlier today", said Naruto, his eyes full of fury and hatred. "Anyway, let's go in, no?", he said as he walked through the door.

Shikamaru just shrugged his shoulders as he followed after the blond.

Once inside, they had no trouble finding their table, it was easily the loudest. They could even distinguish some of the voices; more specifically Ino's. "Hey, what the hell mutt?!"

"I guess that's us", said Naruto with a smirk as they both headed in that direction.

"Oh look!", said Kiba, trying to get Sakura's attention before she pummeled him. "Naruto and Shikamaru are here."

"Yo, Kiba", greeted Naruto, as he and Shikamaru moved to sit, Naruto next to Hinata, Shikamaru next to Naruto and Choji.

"Don't worry guys", said Choji, munching on some chips. "We've already ordered."

"Ah, thanks", said Shikamaru.

"Right", chuckled Naruto. "Good to know."

"Hey!", interrupted Ino, who was sitting next to Choji and Sasuke. "Now that you're all here", she said, turning to look at Naruto, then at Sakura. "Will you tell us what's up with the scars? Even Naruto's all banged up."

Team 7 shivered.

"Some demon cat we had to catch turned out to be an actual, real demon!", answered Sakura, clearly still angry.

"Come on", said Kiba. "It couldn't have been that bad."

"Demon. Cat", said Sasuke, his desire to kill evident.

"I mean-", began Choji.

"Yup", interrupted Naruto. "Demon cat."

Ino, Hinata, Kiba, and Choji gulped.

Shikamaru and Shino sweatdropped.

"W-Well", began Hinata, blushing slightly. "H-How was y-your first d-day?"

"Well", said Sasuke. "Kakashi-sensei had us climb trees."

"Then started us on elemental jutsu", said Sakura, a bit of pride in her voice.

"And then had us spar with weights until we dropped", added Naruto. It was obvious to those listening that they had actually dropped.

Most of the group were slightly taken aback. They all knew Naruto and Sasuke did not drop easily.

"How about you guys?", asked Naruto, facing Hinata.

"K-Kurenai-sensei a-also had us c-climb trees", began Hinata.

Shino nodded.

"Then we spent the rest of our learning to detect and dispel genjutsu", added Kiba. "Genjutsu are scary."

Shino nodded yet again.

"And you guys?", Sakura asked Ino.

"Well", she answered. "Asuma-sensei also had us climb trees."

"Then he had us spar with each other", added Shikamaru. "Which was troublesome."

The rest of them sweatdropped.

"And spent the rest of the day drilling team strategies and planning into us", said Choji.

His team nodded.

Right then, a waiter approached them, various plates in hand.

He handed placed them on the table and left, leaving them to cook their food whichever way they wanted on the charcoal braziers in the middle of the table.

"Awesome!", said Choji, quickly grabbing a few pieces of meat and leaving them to cook.

They all followed soon after, their respective missions had left them all starving.

"By the way", said Naruto, his mouth half-full. "What was your mission?", he asked Shikamaru.

"We had to babysit some child", he said. "It was troublesome."

"Why am I not surprised?", deadpanned Kiba.

"What about you?", Choji asked Shino.

"We helped a lady weed her garden", he answered.

"So", decided Naruto. "We all got stupid missions", he said. "Great."

"Yeah", nodded Ino. "But I think we can all agree none of them quite live up to having to catch a 'demon cat'.

Yet again, they all nodded.

 **A/N**

 **Well, this was a bitch to write. But I hope you enjoyed.**

 **First of all, a reviewer pointed out to me how Hanabi is actually much younger than Naruto, which she is, much more so than I realised at first. With that in mind, it is very unlikely that she will be paired with him. Regardless, I still encourage you all to share your opinions on the matter, especially concerning the other girls.**

 **Also, while I personally much prefer the metric system over imperial or customary, I feel like 'feet' read better than 'meters' while reading/writing in English, especially when it comes to fantasy, or non-modern periods. For those of us who don't really get imperial units, a quick (not exact) guideline; three feet are roughly equal to one meter.**

 **Third, and probably most important, I have taken inspiration and ideas from other stories and authors, which I will do my best to reference the first time they come up so as to avoid confusion. Therefore, if you see (or rather; read) anything that you believe is inspired/copied from someone else or yourself, please do mention it, I'll do my best to clear things up. I have asked some authors for permission, and will ask the rest when I feel it's timely and appropriate, however, if someone does not answer, I will try to avoid using concepts that are too similar to theirs.**

 **Thanks to everyone who followed, reviewed, and/or added to their favourites.**


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